I saw a news article this week that both amazed and frustrated me.
Crisis – a homelessness charity – has announced it will directly become a social landlord, buying and renting out homes at genuinely affordable social-rent levels.
No lobbying. No campaigning. Just stepping in and actually providing the homes that government has failed to deliver for decades.
They’ll be acquiring properties, and letting them to people experiencing or at immediate risk of homelessness. It’s a simple, practical intervention that will directly improve outcomes for families and communities. It is honestly incredible to see the work Crisis is doing.
Here comes the frustration – why should they have to?
It forces us to confront a bigger truth: this didn’t happen overnight, by mistake, or by bad luck. The “housing crisis” (and I use the term reluctantly) is a crisis entirely of our own making — There was no disaster that struck without warning, the truth, is far less dramatic and far more frustrating – We allowed people to buy the stock available, and didn’t replace it.
A brilliant timeline from Shelter shows exactly how we arrived where we are today:
- After WWII, the UK built 4.4 million social homes in 35 years — around 126,000 a year.
- By 1980, we were still building 94,140 social homes.
- The introduction of Right to Buy, along with new restrictions on the powers and resources councils previously used to build and manage social housing, fundamentally shifted the landscape.
- By 1983, social housebuilding had fallen to 44,240.
- The Housing Act 1988 attempted to revive supply, but through private finance and housing associations rather than councils.
- Today, we have 1.4 million fewer social homes than in 1980.
- 1.3 million households sit on waiting lists.
- 164,040 children are growing up in temporary accommodation — up 15% in a year.
- And in 2022–23 we lost 11,700 more social homes than we built.
(The Story of Social Housing – Shelter)
As someone committed to helping shape resilient and inclusive policies, programmes, and projects, this feels like a Bat-Signal — a reminder and an opportunity.
If we continue to under-count people, we will continue to under-serve them. And if we continue to shrink the social housing stock, we will continue to push more families into insecurity, instability, and hidden homelessness.
Shelter also estimates that over £12 billion a year is spent on housing benefit in the private rented sector. Crisis stepping in suggests something much simpler and more common-sense: just provide homes.
And importantly, we do have the resources and expertise.
Just look at projects like Granby Four Streets in Liverpool — a neighbourhood-led regeneration that won the Turner Prize — or the work organisations like Simetrica-Jacobs contribute to through rigorous evidence and evaluation. We know how to build and sustain social homes that deliver positive outcomes for people and places.
The uncomfortable question is this:
Will more organisations step up and fill the evidence and delivery gap?
Or will the government finally realise that spending years proving they “hate immigration” more than the next party has done nothing — absolutely nothing — to build homes, strengthen communities, or reduce homelessness?
I’d love to hear others’ reflections. What do you think needs to change first: the data, the political will, or the investment model?
References:
The Story of Social Housing, Shelter UK
Crisis UK