Briefing: The social housing deficit

We are in the midst of a housing emergency, a crisis that has been driven by decades of underinvestment in social housing.

Last year alone, we built just 6,644 social homes across the whole of England, but in the same period we lost 28,796 social homes to sales and demolitions. At the same time, over one million households are on social housing waiting lists across the country – and many more families struggle to get by in an increasingly expensive private rented sector.

In order to reverse this trend and fix the housing emergency, the government must:

1. Increase investment in social housing, in order to build at least 90,000 social homes a year.

2. Make social housing the priority tenure within the Affordable Homes Programme.

3. Ensure planning reforms maximise the delivery of social homes from new developments.