‘You can’t solve the national housing emergency by building shared ownership’: an interview with Polly Neate

That huge consultation with staff revealed that they “really want us to be powerful advocates for the people we help – and the people that we help are the people most affected by the housing crisis,” she says. This is perhaps not surprising given “our biggest group of staff is doing direct service delivery… and they are absolutely nose-to-nose with how awful it is for people every single day”.

“We need to be representing the needs of the people we work with. Shelter wasn’t founded because my kids can’t afford to buy a home in London – tragic though that is,” she adds with a laugh.

How, though, is Shelter going to set about returning to its roots and “single-mindedly advocating for the people who are at the bottom of the pile”?

One of the main planks of its strategy include securing manifesto commitments from all political parties to a major public housebuilding programme ahead of the 2022 general election and the 2021 Scottish election.

And, in Shelter’s book, public housebuilding means homes for social rent.

“This is social housing, definitely,” states Ms Neate. “No matter who delivered by, but we are talking about housing for social rents, not the wider affordability piece. Not that that doesn’t matter, but you won’t solve the national emergency by building Help to Buy or shared ownership housing.”

In order to do this, Shelter reckons it needs to create a “movement” of at least 500,000 people – who would help the cause by campaigning, volunteering and donating.

Which brings us to the next plank of the strategy: putting Shelter’s service hubs across the country at the heart of communities and turning them into “bases for activism as well as help and support” according to its strategy.

This will help “inspire a new wave of grassroots supporters – a mass movement for change whose voice will be heard everywhere, from Westminster to local town halls”.

“No government is going to build the amount of social housing we need unless they think there is some serious pressure from the country to do that"

“We have been piloting a community organiser role in two of our hubs,” says Ms Neate. “So we are going to roll that out so that our hubs are spaces where we can organise and create change within local communities and also bring on board supporters.”

The 500,000-strong movement is important because there is a limit to what a charity – even one with the size and profile of Shelter – can do by itself, states Ms Neate.

“Ultimately the half a million people convince the government that the only way forward is to build some more social housing,” Ms Neate states. “No government is going to build the amount of social housing we need unless they think there is some serious pressure from the country to do that. We need to create that pressure.”

“I still think for social housing the main obstacle is that people don’t believe that there are votes in building social housing, and we have to convince them that there are,” she adds.

If all of this sounds overambitious in three years, then that’s all well and good, Ms Neate thinks. The possibility of failure, in fact, is a positive, she argues.

Watch a video about Shelter’s 2019-2022 strategy

“I think too many charities when they are setting their strategic aims are asking themselves in three years’ time will we be able to tick that box – and if we can’t, we won’t say it’,” she states. “I don’t agree with that.

"We need to set out what we think realistically has to happen to end the national emergency and what our role in that is going to be.

"That is what our staff want us to do as well. They don’t want us to be playing realpolitik – they want us to be saying what has to happen.”

Providing advice will continue to be a core function. But Shelter’s new strategy wants to develop stronger, quicker and more tailored advice for people whose rights are under threat – including a dedicated emergency phone hotline.

It currently has an emergency number “but we can’t answer enough of the calls at the moment”. So the plan is to increase investment in this area, she adds.

The final main strand of Shelter’s strategy involves developing its use of strategic litigation to challenge discrimination in housing.

On the launch day, you will have seen Ms Neate popping up to talk about how single mothers are eight times more likely to be homeless than couples with children.

And it is in this area that some council housing and social services departments might want to sit up and take notice. Shelter plans to challenge the way children are treated in the housing system. It points out – pretty reasonably! – that the Children Act 1989 should protect the welfare of children if their parents become homeless.

But in some cases councils are threatening to separate parents from their children by saying under the letter of the law their duty of care – and thus offer of accommodation – is with children and not their parents. It’s an issue that Inside Housing has previously flagged as part of its Cathy at 50 homelessness campaign. Now Shelter is vowing to help stamp it out.

“It is definitely widespread,” Ms Neate says of the practice.

“They [councils] don’t do it,” she adds – suggesting, as many others have before, that the threat is effectively a form of gatekeeping designed to make terrified parents go away.