THEY! SAY! CRISIS WE SAY REVOLUTION!
Home is our country’s foundation. When we live in a safe, secure and affordable home, it supports our health, wellbeing and provides us with the solid base we need to thrive in life. That’s why it’s essential for everyone to be able to access and afford a decent home. But currently one in three of us don’t have a safe place to call home. Successive governments have failed to build enough social homes. Over the last three decades, we have lost more social homes than we’ve built. Without access to safe and secure housing, 1.2 million households are currently stuck on social housing waiting lists, and the number of children living in temporary accommodation is the highest ever recorded. Thousands more people are forced to sleep on the street. The chronic shortage of social homes has meant the size of the private rental sector has more than doubled in the last 20 years. And a lack of effective regulation means that private renters are navigating the highest recorded levels of rent, poor conditions and the threat of an unfair eviction. People are trapped in poor-quality homes that they can barely afford, unable to save and having to cut back on essentials to pay their bills. Across the country, expensive, damp, crumbling homes are making people sick and holding them back. We cannot build a thriving society when people’s homes are harming their health, nor create a sustainable economy when rising rents are trapping families in financial hardship. THIS!IS!THE!HOUSING!EMERGENCY - Our Housing System is Broken, Shelter.