People should not have to live like this: Time to end the poor-quality housing crisis

I have been campaigning for better homes for a number of years now. In that time, I have visited people who are enduring the most unimageable conditions every day of their lives in the place they should be able to call a sanctuary and shelter from the outside world. Homes where damp and black mould have spread across entire walls to the extent it is harder to spot the dry patches than the damp. 

I have met with people who have had sewage flooding through their homes. I have seen people living in homes in terrible states of disrepair, where fixtures and fittings are unstable and falling off, where whole rooms are abandoned because they are uninhabitable. This was also the upbringing I endured, living in a house that was not fit for purpose. 

This is what a housing crisis looks like. It is one of the great issues of our time and yet still fails to receive a solution that matches the scale of the problem. Nearly 8 million people in England are living in homes that are cold, need repair, or have serious hazards. For many, living in a dangerous home will have a substantial impact on their quality of life. For some, their home will kill them. I’ve seen from my own experience how poor housing can harm the health of the people you love. 

Respiratory diseases, congestive heart failure, lung conditions such as asthma, heart disease and neurological disease. People living with these conditions have little hope of recovery if living in poor-quality housing. The damp, water leaks, bad condensation, electrical problems, rot and decay, and excess cold of poor-quality housing will only cause such conditions to deteriorate. Quickly. 

Living in poor-quality housing, and feeling like you are powerless to protect yourself and your loved ones from its negative impact, can have terrible repercussions on people’s mental health. There are a variety of cruel ways in which living in poor-quality housing might push you under. The people who endure the sufferings of poor-quality housing are the vulnerable, the voiceless and the marginalised.

The odds of living in poor-quality housing increase significantly if you are from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic community background. Many of the people I have met feel powerless to do anything about the terrible circumstances they find themselves in. They want to find better housing, or to find the solutions to improving the homes they have. They make complaints but their voices are not listened to. There is no consequence for inaction despite the suffering it causes. The victims of the poor-quality housing crisis desperately need greater support to help raise the quality of the homes they live in. Action is being taken. Awaab's Law will force social landlords to fix damp and mould as well as carry out emergency repairs. 

The Renters’ Rights Bill should provide greater protections and raise standards for renters. But the proof will be in how effectively these new pieces of legislation are enforced and how landlords and housing associations respond to their new legal obligations. The scale of the crisis is such we need to go much further. There is an urgent need to build significantly more homes in this country. But they must be of a good quality and standard that meets people’s needs. Poorly built new builds of today quickly become the poor-quality housing of tomorrow. And we also need to drive up standards of existing homes. 

The government should be showing they understand the severity of this situation with a response that has the urgency and scale required. We need sufficient resources and funding to be dedicated to the issue, we need the structures and support to be in place for people. The Centre for Ageing Better’s proposals for a national housing quality strategy supported by a Good Homes Hub network that will give everyone access to trustworthy advice and support seems a necessary part of this solution. 

I hope we do finally see the change we need to ensure that everybody has the right to a safe and secure home. I hope for the day when I am not inundated with people living in desperate circumstances who feel they have nowhere else to turn to for help. Sadly that day feels a long way off just now.