Housing Crisis or Green Shoots?

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/d/a/9/a/event_160675962.jpegIt is estimated that by 2025, England will be three quarters of a million homes short of what is needed. And yet the Homes and Communities Agency has announced that the number of "affordable housing starts" for 2011-2012 was just 15,698 - a 68% fall on the previous year.

Clearly we have a crisis as house building is down, homelessness is up, private rents have hit record highs and we have a mortgage market where people are struggling to get mortgages. This is already beginning to impact on well-being and poverty and often young people suffer most as they try to find homes.

Others like David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation believes there is now a big shift in mood music with a growing recognition that we really can build our way out of recession.

Clearly the present crisis needs fast action and new ideas if there are to be any green shoots. In this meetup we have invited representatives of two think tanks that have offered new ideas from different sides of the political spectrum. Can we find common ground and create consensus so that we can build the homes that people need?

At this meeting we will be inviting MPs to join us and take part in the discussion. We hope to make contact with the Select Committee and the All Party Groups.

Speaking will be,

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/5/2/a/event_163581802.jpegDavid Orr is chief executive of the National Housing Federation and recently former President of CECODHAS-Housing Europe, the European Liaison Committee for Social Housing. He has chaired the mobility taskforce, which recently reported on how to increase social housing mobility. He also sits on the board of The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC). The National Housing Federation is the voice of affordable housing in England. They believe that everyone should have the home they need at a price they can afford.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/d/b/6/c/event_160676172.jpegGraeme Cooke, Associate Director for Family, Community and Work at IPPR Graeme is the joint author of the IPPR publication “Together at home: A new strategy for housing” which brings together a number of policy strands to present a new and often radical strategy for housing in this country.

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/d/b/b/2/event_160676242.jpegAlex Morton is the Senior Research Fellow for Housing & Planning at The Policy Exchange and wrote the now well reported publication “Why Aren’t We Building Enough Attractive Homes? Myths, misunderstandings and solutions” where he argues that “selling off expensive housing stock when it becomes empty could raise £4.5bn a year. This could be used to build up to 170,000 new social homes a year.”

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