Shelter briefing: General Debate on Housing

In England, we are facing an acute housing crisis. It's driven by a long-term failure to build enough homes, and in particular, enough affordable homes. The results are stark:

• 300,000 families are now homeless in England, including 127,000 children

• 78,000 households are living in temporary accommodation

• average house prices are eight times' income for ordinary working families

To resolve these challenges, the core solution is dramatically increasing the delivery of genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy. This needs to be achieved by a combination of increasing the number provided by private developers as part of Section 106 planning obligations, and unleashing a new wave of public sector housebuilding comparable to the post-war years. This is based on the principles found in our New Civic Housebuilding report.