Housing & Homelessness
We should all have a safe, healthy, and affordable place to call home. This is crucial to our health and wellbeing, our family and work life, and our dignity.
However, millions of people across the UK live in homes that are insecure, unaffordable, and poorly insulated, with damp, mould and disrepair.
It doesn't have to be this way. We know that everyday people have the ability to shape the world around them by working together.
We are calling on the Government to:
End child homelessness: set a time-limit on temporary accommodation
Unlock the potential for more affordable housing, to avoid overcrowded homes
Make our existing homes safe and healthy, whilst not costing the earth
Key facts and figures
The housing emergency now affects more than 17.5 million of us.
There are people living in ‘temporary’ accommodation for excessively long periods of time – as long as 21 years, where babies are learning to crawl on beds because of a lack of space and children face chaotic moves from schools and GPs multiple times a year. Social and private tenants face spiralling rents that outstrip their income, due to a chronic lack of supply. Younger generations are giving up on dreams of one day owning their own home. And homes are too often subject to damp, mould, and other states of disrepair that impact our physical and mental health.
Temporary Accommodation
- At least 168,000 children are living in temporary accommodation in the UK, being moved around regularly without the safety and stability they deserve.
- The number of children that have been in hotels for longer than the six-week legal limit has increased by 663% in three years, from 490 children to 3,250.
Affordable Housing
- About 1.3 million households in England are on local authority waiting lists for social housing, with 90,000 in Wales and 240,000 in Scotland.
- Millions of people live in overcrowded, dangerous, unstable, and unaffordable housing.
Upgrades and Repair
- 3.7 million homes in England were classed as non-decent representing 14.6% of the total housing stock. A non-decent home is one with a hazard or immediate threat to a person’s health, not in a reasonable state of repair, lacking modern facilities or not effectively insulated or heated.
- Over half of households have reported overheating in bedrooms.
- 500 people die each year because our homes are damp and cold.
"I live with my husband in temporary accommodation and for the past four years we have been moved four times across East, South, North London. My daughter asked me 'what is our next destination', is it West?”
Fatiha – South London Citizens
Children are living in poor-quality temporary accommodation without time limits being enforced, which is partly due to a massive shortage of affordable and decent housing.
There is a clear need to build new homes, including social homes, that are truly affordable.
We can’t just build new homes. The current housing stock will make up 80% of homes in 2050, so we must repair and upgrade existing homes to make them healthier and more affordable to heat.
How we are making change
We're bringing everyday people together with powerholders to tackle poor housing and increase affordable housing for better and improved homes in communities up and down the UK, now and for our future.
Listening to people in local communities
In Caerau and Ely in Cardiff, the Homes for Health Tenant Action team listened to 300 people in the community about the negative mental and physical health impacts of poor quality housing. They heard stories of hospital visits because of chest infections caused by mould, repair timelines causing mental stress, and people painting their living room walls black to cover the mould, because they were embarrassed for others to see it.
Find out more
Peterborough Citizens listened to over 3,000 people from organisations across the city such as colleges, community hubs and faith groups. They heard stories of damp and mould worsening health conditions in adults and babies, sky-high rents for sub-standard properties and landlords’ refusal to fix properties.
Read moreBuilding relationships with key decision-makers
Four months after our General Election Assembly gathering 2000 Citizens UK members, community leader Fatiha met again with the now Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner. The Deputy Prime Minister further committed to making improving temporary accommodation a priority and connecting us to senior civil servants and to Minister Rushanara Ali to bring our evidence and our policy solutions.
Watch our videoTaking Action
On 23rd October 2024, leaders from across Citizens UK gathered in Parliament Square to call on the Government to ensure that all children in temporary accommodation are placed in homes that are safe, in good condition, and close to their community and support networks. Leaders also demanded an end to damp and mouldy housing conditions.
Read more
On 20 June 2024, across the country, hundreds of community leaders came together calling for safe, stable, and healthy homes for all.
Find out moreOur track record
Councils given more freedom by Government to crack down on rogue landlords
In December 2024, after 10 years of campaigning by the Renters Reform Coalition and Citizens UK, the Government announced that councils have been given more freedom to crack down on rogue landlords.
Citizens UK has been campaigning to improve conditions for renters since 2015 and have won the implementation of the initial selective licensing scheme in five London boroughs, and in Nottingham. The initial scheme was only applicable to 20% of the borough, but this development removes that restriction.
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The Citizens UK Housing Summit
In 2021, Citizens UK worked towards a national summit with Rt Hon Robert Jenrick. The Citizens UK Housing Summit was an opportunity to reflect on where we are as a country when it comes to housing and how we might work with local and national government in their efforts to build back better. We worked across local alliances and partnered with Create Streets to develop a series of events culminating in an assembly with senior Government officials and decision makers.
Community Land Trusts
In London, we pioneered genuinely and permanently affordable homes through the St Clement’s Community Land Trust campaign in Bow, East London. We successfully campaigned for local authorities to develop landlord licensing schemes to help tackle rogue landlords. By securing a commitment from the Mayor of London, we also doubled the percentage of affordable housing in new developments through the Good Development Standard.
After 10 years of campaigning and hard work, 11 genuinely affordable and permanent homes are now complete and opened in Lewisham. It is the first community land trust in London that has been directly created by the community using London CLT’s unique affordability model, in partnership with Lewisham Citizens, Lewisham Council and the Greater London Authority.
Suspending No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) for homeless people during the Covid-19 pandemic
In October 2019, homelessness GP outreach services saw GPs delivering health checks in hostels and on the streets of Redbridge, London. Following this, local leadership teams engaged with their local authorities, inviting them to a Homelessness Summit in March 2020. Over 100 people attended. By May, the East London Homelessness Campaign had grown into a national campaign to suspend NRPF for homeless people during the Covid-19 pandemic. In June 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the campaign engaged Housing Minister Robert Jenrick MP, asking for extended support for people with NRPF. This was done through social media – with videos and testimonies.
Modular Housing
Following the success of Malachi Place which provides quality modular housing for individuals experiencing homelessness in East London, we expanded our Malachi Homes project to Essex as part of a national partnership with the Salvation Army and the Hill Group. In North London, our Haringey Citizens alliance supported Hill Group’s modular homes project with Haringey council.