Guest blog
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External authors writing for the Shelter blog
Swinton MD takes on Kilimanjaro for Shelter
Swinton MD takes on Kilimanjaro for Shelter
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In early 2018, Swinton Insurance announced a partnership with Shelter, their ambition being to generate funds and raise awareness around poor-quality homes, the housing shortage, and homelessness across the country.

With plans for a series of fundraising events for colleagues and customers, Swinton committed to raising £50,000 by April 2020 – and we’re delighted to say they’re already just a few pounds away from reaching that target! People all across the company have taken on challenges like the London Marathon, … Read more

It’s time to fix Britain’s housing crisis at its roots: land
It’s time to fix Britain’s housing crisis at its roots: land
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Guest blog by Alastair Parvin, CEO of Open System Lab

Let’s do a thought experiment.

Imagine that the UK was restricted to only one web domain address for every person. Enough for everyone to have one each, but only just. Every year, in order to keep up with population growth, the government issues a few thousand new ones for a notional fee of £462 each. Some addresses get much better download speeds than others, but they all get issued for … Read more

Sireena's story
Sireena's story
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My son amazes me every day. He works so hard at school, he’s an A-star student. He never lets our home life get him down and it breaks my heart because there’s very little I can do to change things right now. This Christmas will be just like the last – cold, damp and difficult. I’ll make it as good as I can for us, but when you’re living in a cramped, temporary place, doing whatever you can to keep … Read more

Building successful and sustainable neighbourhoods
Building successful and sustainable neighbourhoods
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Guest blog by Jo McCafferty, Levitt Bernstein

Following the announcement that Goldsmith Street, a social housing project in Norwich, is this year’s well-deserved winner of both the Stirling Prize and the inaugural RIBA Neave Brown Prize for Housing, there’s been a flurry of articles in the press.

Many of these pieces congratulate the skills and tenacity of the architects – Mikhail Riches and Cathy Hawley – and the bravery and vision of their client, Norwich City Council. Some predict a … Read more

How a social home changed my life
How a social home changed my life
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It’s unbelievable how many families are forced to rent privately because they can’t secure a social home and have no hope of buying. That’s exactly the situation I was in.

I spent over a decade privately renting a cottage for myself and my daughter. Every month was a struggle to cover the rent. I felt a lot of shame about that – like I was getting something wrong or should be coping better.

For the final few years we lived … Read more

Landlords for good
Landlords for good
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Here at Shelter, we often hear from landlords who are making a positive difference in their tenants’ lives and playing a part in addressing the housing emergency. We wanted to celebrate these great landlords, who show that owning houses is about more than making profits – it’s about providing homes.

Alison’s story

I became a landlord at the age of 36 when I met my partner and together we bought a two-bed house in south London without selling the flat … Read more

Council housing is the bedrock of the future, not a relic of the past
Council housing is the bedrock of the future, not a relic of the past
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Guest blog by John Boughton

Lloyd George never promised ‘Homes for Heroes’, and the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act didn’t create the first ‘council’ housing. But, those two common misconceptions aside, it’s been a pleasure to see Christopher Addison’s flagship reform so widely celebrated on its centenary. And with good reason: 100 years on, there’s an urgent need to see a commitment to large-scale social housebuilding that matches the ambitions of 1919, to provide homes people desperately need. 

My … Read more

I’m a teacher, I’m a single mother, I have a sick son, and yet this is our only option
I’m a teacher, I’m a single mother, I have a sick son, and yet this is our only option
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My name is Georgina, I’m 28 years old and I’m a secondary school maths teacher. I live with my three year old son in a one bedroom flat. 

Oliver is a very playful, inquisitive, boisterous toddler, who has a real zest for life.  He loves being outdoors. He has a real love of learning. He’s fantastic, he’s my little boy.

Oliver was diagnosed with a brain tumour 18 months ago. He has chemotherapy treatment every Monday.

I’m privately renting our … Read more

Land Reform: The key to better quality homes
Land Reform: The key to better quality homes
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Guest blog by Julia Park, Levitt Bernstein

Almost everywhere in the country, the cost of the land needed to build a house is more than the cost of actually building it. And it shows.

Our speculative approach to development means that a bidding war is now the normal way to acquire land. The race to the top when it comes to buying a site perversely creates a race to the bottom when it comes to the end product.

Very little … Read more

We need to reform the 1961 Act to create places people love
We need to reform the 1961 Act to create places people love
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Guest Blog – Will Tanner, Director of Onward

If you were to construct a system to maximise resentment towards new housebuilding, the British land system would probably come close.

For decades, new homes have been encouraged in places that communities are most likely to oppose development, in designs that jar with local styles, without proper consultation with communities, and with insufficient investment in the infrastructure that local people understandably expect alongside housing.

The root causes of undersupply are often thought … Read more

Increasing housing supply can improve living standards for the squeezed middle
Increasing housing supply can improve living standards for the squeezed middle
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Guest Blog – Thomas Aubrey, Centre for Progressive Policy

Housing costs over the last 20 years have been a real drain on household incomes. Indeed, this rise in prices for renters and owner occupiers has been responsible for more than a third of the rise in overall living costs. House prices have increased in the last two decades at a much faster rate than earnings, resulting in the median house price to earnings ratio roughly doubling. But these costs have … Read more

WELLcome Home: giving patients somewhere to recover
WELLcome Home: giving patients somewhere to recover
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Funded by the Big Lottery’s Help Through Crisis scheme and in partnership with Birmingham Mind, our WELLcome Home services provide outcome-focused support to individuals and their families. The aim is to help them reconnect to their accommodation and community after a stay as an inpatient. 

We’re fast approaching the service’s fourth year, so it feels like an appropriate time to share another success story.

Imagine not being able to take your baby home from hospital because you have nowhere to … Read more