NHF boss tells CPC23 ‘we need to do a lot better’ over children in temporary accommodation

Ms Henderson stated that the costs of the housing crisis fall on the public purse. 

She explained: “We’ve got housing benefits subsidising sky high rents in the private rented sector. The police, the NHS, the courts, they’re treating the symptoms of the housing crisis every day. 

“And it just doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better. 

“So for us, we would really like to see a positive long-term plan for housing for all the parties going into this next election.”

She said “we do need big numbers”, but that it “isn’t just about big numbers”.

“It’s about giving people life chances. When we talk about housing, we want to frame that debate around the outcomes we want to see.

“Imagine a society where we don’t have any families holed up in temporary accommodation, wouldn’t that be a great outcome at the end of the next parliament?” Ms Henderson added.

Panellist Geeta Nanda, chief executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley, set out the economic benefits the housing association has. 

She said: “A social tenancy contributes a huge amount to our economy and society. For us as a housing association, it’s about £713m a year to the UK economy. 

“£287m of that is through building new homes, and we build around 1,200 homes a year, but also £162m through health and well-being outcomes – saving the NHS and local authority. 

“It’s about good housing giving good outcomes.”

Bartek Staniszewski, senior researcher at centre-right thinktank Bright Blue, said in the short-term “we need some kind of demand side policy”. 

He added: “We need to make homes cheaper for the people who really need them.

“This something that is so much more politically palatable because even if today Rishi [Sunak] came out and said, ‘We are doing an enormous housebuilding programme, we are doing half a million homes every single year, whatever it takes’, prices wouldn’t change very much before the next election and the voters wouldn’t take notice.

“On the other hand, if announced a demand side scheme, prices would change overnight, so the voters would react.”

Mr Staniszewski said demand side schemes have a bad reputation because they have “not worked perfectly”, but it “doesn’t have to be this way”. 

He later added that he would like to building on the green belt. 

Paul Fiddaman, chief executive of Karbon Homes, agreed with the need for a long-term plan for housing. 

“There is probably no aspect of a person’s life which is not touched by their housing circumstances. 

“We know that people in difficult types of circumstances are likely to underachieve in education and have worse health outcomes,” he said.

Mr Fiddaman added that a long-term plan for housing should live in the context of a broader long-term plan that “thinks about targeted economic growth and thinks about the infrastructure that is needed to support that”. 

Ms Nanda said she would like to see housing in political parties’ manifestos and would like to see “some promises” around how more homes will be built. 

Panel chair Vicky Spratt, housing correspondent at The i, said: “Whenever I do these panels, there’s always agreement and then I don’t see any of it reflected in the manifestos.

“So we know what to do but the question is, ‘Is anyone going to do it?’”