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Homes for All: a vision for the housing system in England
A joint project by the Church of England and the Nationwide Foundation sets out a call for politicians to adopt a radical new approach to tackling the housing crisis. David Orr, who has been leading a small executive team set up by the Bishop for Housing, makes the case for change
David has been Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and of Newlon Housing T...more
The facts setting out the depth and scale of the housing crisis in England should be at the front of our minds, but still we forget.
There were 131,000 children in temporary accommodation in 2023; 14% of our homes are failing the Decent Homes Standard; homeownership is out of reach for most young people, with a 377% price hike in 30 years; thousands of people are sleeping rough; wealth inequality based on housing assets is growing; and there is a huge gap between the number of new homes we need and the number that gets built.
There are many thousands of people of goodwill doing their best to counteract this by working in services for homeless people, running councils and housing associations, and building some of the new homes we need. They also arguing for more investment in our existing homes, which by most measures are the smallest, least energy efficient and poorest quality in Western Europe.
For all their best endeavours, things have gone from bad to worse. At the heart of the problem is a political failure. Our politicians have failed to recognise this is a systemic failure that requires a systemic, long-term and strategic response. Instead of that strategic response, we’ve had countless initiatives which have comprehensively failed to address the underlying problems.
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You’d need a long memory to enumerate some of these initiatives. Initiatives such as the entirely ineffective Starter Homes; 200,000 were promised and precisely none delivered. Or measures that had far-reaching consequences such as the Bedroom Tax, which displaced families, had adverse impacts on education and health, and meant some usable homes sat empty.
Or Help to Buy, a scheme designed to help some families become homeowners, which it did, but it also drove up house prices. If you increase demand without increasing supply, the price goes up. And tinkering with the planning system has become almost a policy obsession.
All of these were standalone measures that took no account of the systemic impacts. None had any strategic benefit. The system is as broken now as it was before Help to Buy was introduced.
“Our politicians have failed to recognise this is a systemic failure that requires a systemic, long-term and strategic response”
As former chief executive of the National Housing Federation, I have spent a huge part of my working life arguing that we must approach this differently. Unless we have a clear view of what we are trying to achieve over time, it is impossible to plot a route map to get there. Housing investment is a very long-term commitment that requires long-term support and a coherent long-term plan if it is to succeed.
How can you plan a new community, which requires 15 years or more of patient investment, if planning policy changes every year? We need a national vision that we can all work towards and a clear strategy for delivering it.
Leading a small executive team set up by the Bishop for Housing, I have been supporting Homes for All. This is a joint project by the Church of England and the Nationwide Foundation to explore the creation of a housing strategy for England with the cross-party political support necessary to give it the best chance of long-term success.
In carrying out the work, we have been hugely supported by a cross-party group of members of the House of Lords. We have engaged with the housing sector, with academics and thinktanks, as well as various parliamentarians. We have tested and challenged our thinking. And the outcome is launched in parliament on 23 April.
“We make no specific policy proposals. There have been a huge number of thoughtful, sensible reports with clear suggestions for policy changes”
We make three fundamental recommendations. The first is that there must be an agreed vision of what we are trying to achieve. We have suggested what this might be: identifying 25 critical outcomes for better homes, an effective housing market, better systems, and better policy and policymaking. The second is then to define a strategy – the route map to deliver the vision. And the third is to create a ‘housing strategy committee’, established in law and accountable to parliament, to hold future governments to account.
We make no specific policy proposals. There have been a huge number of thoughtful, sensible reports with clear suggestions for policy changes. These are available to the next and future governments as potential mechanisms for delivering the vision and supporting the strategy. The test for all must be whether they help the vision to be delivered.
This is a proposal for a radically new approach with a timescale which recognises the size of the challenge and the time it will take to deliver the vision. But it is also urgent that we act now. We must start immediately so that even the most rapid of policy interventions can begin to make the vision of good homes for all a reality.
This, then, is our call to politicians of today and tomorrow: to step up to the challenge of transforming our housing system in England through concerted, national action. Make the delivery of that change your legacy.
