Report: The Citizens' Summit on the Housing Emergency

Shelter sees government action as central to solving the housing emergency. For Shelter, the next general election (which must take place by January 2025) is therefore a key opportunity to make change happen. Shelter wanted to work closely with people with lived experiences of the housing emergency to develop its manifesto for the general election campaign.

To inform the development of its manifesto Shelter commissioned NatCen’s Centre for Deliberative Research (CDR) to deliver a citizens’ summit on the housing emergency. The summit had two main objectives:

• To identify an agreed set of principles to guide Shelter’s general election campaign. These principles set out a vision for a future where there is no housing emergency.

• To understand which policy solutions people with lived experience of the housing emergency want prioritised in Shelter’s manifesto. The proposed solutions were a combination of Shelter’s existing solutions and solutions suggested by participants during the summit.

The summit has generated both principles and priorities that speak to people’s experiences of the housing emergency, what they want to underpin Shelter’s manifesto, and what they believe are the specific solutions to the housing emergency.