Homes for Citizens: The politics of a fair housing policy

In this Fabian Ideas pamphlet, Vidhya Alakeson, Richard Capie, Kate Green, Brian Johnson, Matt Leach, Nick Raynsford, Duncan Shrubsole, and Rebecca Tunstall focus on the crisis in British housing policy.

Housing can be a source of great anxiety and concern. With over a quarter of us losing sleep worrying about our housing costs, social housing in scarce supply, private rents in many areas continuing to rise, and the inevitability of an interest rate hike for owners, there is very little reason to think that this situation is set to get any better.

However, there is a real and surprising barrier for anyone trying to solve Britain’s housing problems – despite this widespread anxiety there is very little sense of housing as a political problem that a social or campaign movement could coalesce around.

In ‘Homes for Citizens’ the authors show we need a more nuanced understanding of how policy reform in one housing ‘sector’ can have political repercussions in others. Editor James Gregory presents a coherent account of how the Labour Party and progressive politics can give us the housing we deserve.

You can buy a printed copy edition of Homes for Citizens: The politics of a fair housing policy for £9.95, plus £1 p+p, by phoning the Fabian Society bookshop on 020 7227 4900, emailing us at bookshop@fabian-society.org.uk or send a cheque payable to “The Fabian Society” to 11 Dartmouth Street, London, SW1H 9BN.