THE Church of Scotland Housing and Loan Fund For Retired Ministers and Widows and Widowers of Ministers celebrates its 50th birthday next month (June).
The seeds for the Fund were sown when the General Assembly of 1965 recognised the difficulties faced by ministers in providing their own house for retirement and approved the setting up of a “Retired Ministers’ Housing Fund”. Over the next four years discussions took place mainly between the Aged and Infirm Ministers’ Fund (forerunner of the Ministers’ Pension Scheme), the Ministry Department and the Baird Trust.
All three bodies contributed towards the setting up of the Fund – £100,000 in total – and the first meeting of the Fund’s Board of Trustees took place on June 2 1969. Initially assistance was small loans of around £500 to £1,500, but in 1970 the average price of a house was just under £5,000. The Fund started to accumulate a small number of houses available for rent as properties were gifted or bequeathed – over the years around 40 houses have come to the Fund this way.