More and Better Housing

Commitment sought: 10,000 social housing units a year will be provided

Delivering increased social housing is central to preventing and alleviating homelessness. The National Economic and Social Council (NESC) estimate that we need 73,000 social housing units in the seven years between 2005 and 2012.

Social housing is provided directly by local authorities and through the community and voluntary sector housing. The number of social housing units being delivered at the moment falls far short of what is needed. In December 2009 there were 100,000 households in need of social housing. This represents a 50% increase on levels of need in 2005. While the government is currently meeting its social housing commitments as outlined in Towards 2016 PArtnership Agreement, the targets are to low to meet the growing housing need.

In order to increase access to social housing, the MakeRoom campaign is seeking:

• urgent implementation of the NESC (2005) recomendation for a total housing social housing stock of 200,000 units by increasing social housing output to 10,000 units per annum net of tenant purchase
• ring fencing a proportion of all Local Authority allocations for homeless households, including single person households