A housing body backed by debt campaigner David Hall has beefed up its board in advance of the launch next month of a scheme to allow struggling borrowers to sacrifice ownership of their home in return for a lifetime tenancy.

The new directors of Hall’s Icare Housing are Pat Doyle, chief executive of the Peter McVerry homeless charity; Paddy Gray of Ulster University; and Louisa Santoro of the Mendicity Institution, one of Dublin’s oldest charities.

Using the government’s mortgage-to-rent scheme, Icare will buy the homes of distressed borrowers, then allow them to remain in the properties as local authority tenants.