It’s housing day in the general election campaign, but it’s not a normal election housing day. In all recent elections the housing policies of the major parties have been welcome but small reforms at best and actually destructive at worst. Now, with major commitments from the big parties, this election marks a sharp turn from the incremental to the transformational. Make no mistake, the plans laid out to build hundreds of thousands of new social homes are big, as are … Read more
About Greg Beales
Ending DSS Discrimination
‘On benefits’. We live in a society which has given those two words an unwelcome significance they don’t deserve. Free state education, using the NHS, assistance from the police, relying on the basic state pension, we all often depend on the state stepping in to help us live full lives. The welfare state and the benefit system exists to do the same thing. And yet we’ve become comfortable as a society with the idea that ‘on benefits’ denotes a different … Read more
Private renting is broken. Now's our chance to fix it.
The government has proposed giving private renters more protections by changing the minimum length of tenancies to three years, and they’re running a consultation until 26 August. Shelter has a campaign to help renters feed into the consultation. Greg Beales, Shelter’s Director of Communications, Policy & Campaigns, explains the importance of this opportunity.
We are all familiar with the idea there is a housing crisis, but seeing the human and social cost of it can still shock you. And … Read more