Email #19

Dear Harriet

Today I sent an email generated by the housing charity Shelter to George Osbourne regarding the emergancy budget and the conservative pledge to build more affordable homes.  This shouldnt just mean homes that are cheap to buy but social housing.  With their planned extention to the Right to Buy Scheme, the incumbent government are failing to see that this will ADD to the housing crisis not eleviate it if no social housing schemes are planned to make up for the sales.

Labour MUST add to  the calls for more affordable homes and Labour MUST insist on social housing schemes being built.  Labour MUST also help protect the Focus E15 who are working tirelessly calling for social housing not social cleansing.

Here is my email to George Osbourne

Dear Mr Osborne,

My name is                   , and I want to see an end to the housing crisis.

In the upcoming Budget and Spending Review, I want you to promise you’ll protect the Affordable Homes Programme until at least 2020.
Housing was a big issue for so many voters at the recent election. The dream of a secure, affordable home is out of reach for too many people.

There just aren’t enough affordable places to live any more in . For decades, governments have failed to build the homes we need. In fact, we are now building just half as many as we need every year.
All parties responded to voters’ anxiety. David Cameron stood on the steps of Downing St and pledged that the next four years would partly be about ‘the homes I want to build’. He told a young person in the TV debates that he wants to build homes ordinary people can afford. And the Conservatives promised to deliver 275,000 additional affordable homes by 2020.

I was glad to see these promises. Now, I want to see them happen.

The Budget and Spending Review is the first test of how seriously the Government takes the shortage of affordable homes, and a huge opportunity to tackle it.
The Affordable Homes Programme provides vital funding for new affordable homes. It’s about creating homes to rent for working people who can’t afford the private rented sector’s sky-high costs. We also need homes to ‘part-buy, part-rent’ for those who can’t afford full ownership, but want to own a small stake in the place they live.

I know that budgets are tight. But if the Government is to keep its word to voters, it must protect or increase this programme. In particular, it must continue to fund affordable homes to rent. We can’t build the affordable homes we need without the right investment.

For a more comprehensive look at how to fix the housing crisis, see Shelter and KPMG’s joint programme at www.thehomesweneed.org.uk.

PLEASE support those in need of social housing

Constituent, Labour Party member, Union member, sleep deprived carer, concerned citizen, self employed mother, mother of a teenager with ASD, socialist, environmentalist, Disabled Rights supporter, Jeremy Corbyn supporter, mother feeding her children with nectar points, defender of the vulnerable, advocate, logistics savant, concerned niece, grassroots activist, anti austerity campaigner, RNLI supporter, unashamed welfare state service user & social housing tenant