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Why Inside Housing is backing the Homes at the Heart campaign
Inside Housing gives its backing to the new Homes at the Heart campaign. The broad coalition of supporters should give chancellor Rishi Sunak pause for thought too, writes Martin Hilditch
What unites the British Property Federation, Unison, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, various chambers of commerce across the North and the Midlands, the Building Societies Association and Carers UK?
OK, because you are reading Inside Housing, there are no prizes for getting the answer right – the clue’s in our name. But it really is a combination government should listen to when it speaks with one voice.
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This week, all of the above joined with 53 other organisations to back a new campaign from the National Housing Federation, Chartered Institute of Housing, National Federation of ALMOs, the Association of Retained Council Housing and Crisis. The ‘Homes at the Heart’ campaign has one simple aim: for social housing to be at the heart of the recovery from the coronavirus crisis, as a driver of economic and social prosperity.
The campaigners are not the only weighty voices making this call.
Just this week the independent Advisory Group on Economic Recovery, established by the Scottish government in April to provide expert advice on supporting the economy to recover from the impacts of COVID-19, took a similar line. It said housing is central to the Scottish economy and people’s well-being and that the Scottish government “should develop mechanisms to accelerate investment in housing and in particular affordable housing” to aid the recovery.
“Investment in housing has an important part to play in supporting Scotland’s recovery, in supporting jobs, creating confidence, and contributing to both social policy and climate change goals,” it added.
Business leaders have long recognised the importance of housing, too. Last year’s London Business Survey by the CBI saw 54% of respondents place delivery of major capital infrastructure projects, including employee access to affordable housing, within their top three policy priorities.
Last year, then-housing minister Kit Malthouse recognised another potential benefit in investment in social housing. “It is counter-cyclical,” he said in an interview with Inside Housing last year. “We hope that through the Affordable Homes Programme... that we could maintain levels of activity and preserve capacity” in a property market downturn.
Then there are the questions raised by our recent research which found that coronavirus death rates are higher in areas where the housing crisis is worse. First Homes alone won’t cut the mustard.
All of which is to say that this magazine strongly backs the new campaign (with an emphasis on social rent). If the government wants a successful recovery, it must listen.
Martin Hilditch, editor, Inside Housing
