Families across the country are struggling to find and keep a home. In just under two weeks’ time, George Osborne has a huge opportunity to change this.
On 25th November, he will announce his Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), which thousands of families need to see include plans to fix the national shortage of affordable homes.
For years, Shelter’s been telling the government that it needs to invest in building more affordable homes (to rent and buy). Over the past few months, Shelter’s campaigners have been urging George Osborne to commit to this in his CSR.
And before you say anything: when we say affordable, we mean social housing and part-rent-part-buy homes.
Yesterday, Christian and his daughter Kerris (pictured) went to Downing Street with Shelter’s own red briefcase, containing a petition signed by 23,703 people. They’ve had a terrible time with housing (you can read their story here), and know how much needs to change.
On top of this, hundreds of Shelter supporters have sent handwritten messages to their MPs, with many writing directly to George Osborne. Up and down the country, Shelter shops got involved, uniting local people to take action on a national level.
If you were involved in the campaign: thank you! If you weren’t, please sign up to receive information on upcoming campaigns; the more of us there are, the louder we can be.
Everyone deserves a safe, secure and affordable place to call home. If George Osborne doesn’t take this opportunity, things will only get worse. We hope he listens.
If he doesn’t put aside funding for affordable homes, we may just end up building expensive homes. If this happens, by the end of this Parliament, a generation will be trapped in expensive private renting, or their childhood bedrooms.
If we don’t replace the social homes sold off through Right to Buy, housing waiting lists will get longer. Many people will be stuck paying high rents for homes in poor condition and more people will face homelessness.
Shelter hears from millions of people facing bad housing and homelessness each year. Building more affordable homes would give them the security of a stable place to call home.
This Christmas, 100,000 children will be homeless. If this makes you as angry as it does us, join our campaign calling on the government to make sure all families have somewhere decent and secure to live
