Homes for Us summit 2024: what are the next steps in the fight for housing justice?

This autumn, almost 100 housing activists from across England and Wales came together in London for the inaugural Homes for Us Alliance (HFU) Summit. The aim of this summit was to highlight housing injustices and strategically build on the Alliance’s existing demands, which were collectively agreed by activists in 2022. In this blog we will summarise some of the key challenges and priorities that emerged from the summit.

The Homes for Us alliance evolved in response to the difficulties many of us are experiencing as a result of the housing crisis. Financial hardship has become an increasingly big issue for renters. In 1980, the average renter in the UK spent 10% of their income on rent, whereas today, that figure is above 30%. Due to the shortage of social housing, councils are hemorrhaging millions from their budgets on temporary accommodation and homelessness services – much of which is not fit for purpose, leaving some of the most vulnerable people in dangerous conditions. And beyond this, the housing crisis is impacting our quality of life, with people living shorter, more unhealthy lives as a result of poor quality housing.

We began the day by discussing the current policy landscape, focusing on key opportunities and challenges. It was important for us to recognize that the summit was being held in the context of a new government, who has previously promised to intervene to address the chronic housing crisis we face.

Whilst progress has been made on the Renters Rights Bill, which the HFU Alliance welcomes, we are clear that the government are still not taking the magnitude of the crisis and its impacts seriously enough. It became abundantly clear at the summit that the harsh realities of the housing crisis were visceral in the room, realities that must and will remain front and centre in our work.

It is necessary to establish what wins and losses have emerged in policy and politics, and most importantly, where our opportunities for influence are. We did this through discussing key policy areas, identifying our allies and targets, and mapping how the HFU alliance could be effective moving forward. There is strategic potential in knowing where our power lies, whilst also acknowledging where it does not. One means by which we identified this was collectively establishing the issues we face. Inevitably, there were many, and they were complex, interconnected and context dependent.

It would be difficult to summarise the wealth and depth of experience and knowledge at the summit in its entirety. However, we wanted to use the summit as a springboard from which to identify key inter-regional and cross-sector challenges. These have been characterised broadly as:

• Systemic inequality and discrimination
• The fallacy of ​‘affordable housing’
• Lack of accountability from those who hold power (landlords, local/​combined authorities, and central government)
• Chronic inaccessibility of homes and a lack of understanding of accessibility as a foundational part of the housing struggle, not an addition to it
• Weathering the complexity of feeling powerless in relation to landlords, local authorities, and the government vs the increasing strength of the housing movement

These collective issues will undoubtedly resonate with housing campaigners nationally and internationally. They are issues which have plagued the housing system for decades and as aforementioned, have intensified in recent years.

As such, during the summit, urgent priorities for the HFU Alliance emerged. These include:

• Coordinating and collaborating with people from different groups to expand our reach in communities across the UK
• Centering empathy and solidarity within our movement
• Continuing to cultivate partnerships with those who can push from within for housing reforms (such as NGOs, sympathetic politicians,local authorities, and housing associations)
• Strategic meetings: Developing local, regional and national strategies to mobilise different kinds of power for housing (at local, combined authority and national levels)
• Fundraising: Identify sources to support housing initiatives, including collaboration with Housing Rebellion.

These priorities are, of course, not exhaustive. They are reflective of where the HFU alliance believes we, as a collective, need to focus on at this current juncture. They are complementary to the long-term political demands of the alliance and the collective action we take on the ground to achieve this.

The housing system does not need to be a mechanism from which a small number of people make eyewatering financial gain. It does not need to make us ill and it does not need to push us into poverty and precarity. Another system is possible, but it is up to us to use our collective power to leverage that.

Find out more about the Homes for Us alliance and how you can get involved here.