How to fix Britain's social housing crisis
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 29 July 2024
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Britain faces a severe housing crisis. But while high interest rates, mortgages, and sky high prices in the private rental market dominate headlines, Britain's diminishing social housing stock gets less attention. The supply shortages, landlord mismanagement, and unsafe conditions often seen in social housing are all issues that the new Labour government will have to contend with.
Social housing campaigner and author Kwajo Tweneboa joins the New Statesman's policy correspondent, Harry Clarke-Ezzidio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello, I'm Hannah Barnes and you're listening to the New Statesman podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | Around four and a half million households live in social housing in England, but there are another 1.3 million people on |
| 0:16.2 | waiting lists, and in some boroughs, Greenwich in London being the worst, they face a 55 year weight. |
| 0:23.6 | Meanwhile, some of those who do have a social home |
| 0:26.1 | face conditions so poor as to be unlivable. |
| 0:29.5 | You might remember the case of Awab Ishak, |
| 0:32.3 | the two-year-old boy who died in 2020 as a result of exposure to mold and |
| 0:37.7 | damp in his family's social home. His case resulted in Awab's law, part of the Social Housing Regulation Act, which forces |
| 0:46.8 | social landlords to fix health hazards in the homes they provide. |
| 0:52.2 | Labor have pledged to extend Arab's law to the private rental |
| 0:55.6 | sector and deliver what they say will be the biggest increase in social and |
| 1:00.9 | affordable housing in a generation. But will it be enough? And will it |
| 1:06.1 | come fast enough to reverse Britain's social housing crisis? One person who understands better than most the pressure felt by families living in the worst housing conditions is Quijo Twenaboa. |
| 1:20.0 | He grew up in social housing and now campaigns on behalf of others and substandard accommodation, |
| 1:26.6 | lobbying government ministers to improve housing for the poorest in society. |
| 1:33.2 | His new book, Our Country and Crisis, |
| 1:36.0 | Britain's housing emergency, |
| 1:38.1 | outlines the causes of social housing problems |
| 1:41.1 | and the need for urgent action. |
| 1:45.4 | In this episode we're bringing you an interview with Quijo by the new statesman's policy |
| 1:50.2 | correspondent Harry Clark Ezzidio. |
... |
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