Dear party leaders,
We write to you as organisations working with people affected by homelessness, housing, migrant and refugee policies – whose members and service-users exist at the sharpest end of the housing emergency – to express our deep concern with the direction of the political conversation around housing and migration in the lead up to the election.
We know that when we live in a safe, secure and affordable home, it provides us with the solid base we need to thrive in life. Everyone deserves this right – regardless of their migration status.
But recent months have seen the housing emergency used to justify inflammatory and racist
narratives. Migrants, people seeking asylum, and British-born Black and Brown communities are
being blamed for this country's acute shortage of social rent homes and record levels of
homelessness. Now that the election has been called, this rhetoric is only growing louder.
This narrative doesn't exist in a vacuum. It has a knock-on impact across the country. As it becomes more ingrained in everyday discourse on the news, the campaign trail, and social media, it further fans the flames of xenophobia and racism.
This narrative scapegoats and punishes a group of people for a problem that they did not create. But we know the truth. The housing emergency is the result of political choices. We are haemorrhaging social homes: there's been a net loss of over 260,000 social rent homes in the last decade alone.
The organisations undersigned call on all parties to stamp out scapegoating and focus on
building genuinely affordable social homes as the only sustainable way to end the housing
emergency.
We need a new generation of good quality, secure and genuinely affordable social homes – at least 90,000 per year – for the benefit of everyone in society. This social housing must be allocated fairly, based on need, or else we will see homelessness continue to rise.
Every family, whatever their background, needs a safe and secure place to put down roots, where their home can be their foundation.
We demand social housing. Not scapegoating.
#SocialHousingNotScapegoating
Yours sincerely,
Polly Neate CBE (Chief Executive, Shelter)
