Shelter responds to the Chancellor’s Budget

Shelter responds to the Chancellor’s Budget

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “With homelessness at record levels and a temporary accommodation bill in the billions, we desperately need investment in genuinely affordable social homes. The government's announcements to top up the Affordable Homes Programme and limit Right to Buy are the first steps in delivering these.

“A chronic shortage of social homes combined with rocketing private rents is tearing communities apart - pricing families out of their local areas and pushing over 151,00 children into homelessness. Families are forced to live out of suitcases, stuck in grotty homeless accommodation for years.

“Building social housing saves the taxpayer money, boosts jobs, reduces the burden of poor housing on our NHS and, crucially, will end homelessness for good. The money freed up by today’s changes to fiscal rules should now be used at the Spring Spending Review to deliver the 90,000 social homes a year this country needs.”

ENDS