We are pleased to join many other organisations in an open letter to all party leaders, urging them to reject the scapegoating of migrant, migratised and racialised communities, and instead commit to policies of affordable social housing. Read the letter below, or alternatively you can access it on Shelter’s website here.
Open letter
Dear party leaders,
We write to you as organisations working with people affected by homelessness, housing, migrant and refugee policies – whose members and service-users exist at the sharpest end of the housing emergency – to express our deep concern with the direction of the political conversation around housing and migration in the lead up to the election.
We know that when we live in a safe, secure and affordable home, it provides us with the solid base we need to thrive in life. Everyone deserves this right – regardless of their migration status.
But recent months have seen the housing emergency used to justify inflammatory and racist narratives. Migrants, people seeking asylum, and British-born Black and Brown communities are being blamed for this country’s acute shortage of social rent homes and record levels of homelessness. Now that the election has been called, this rhetoric is only growing louder.
This narrative doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It has a knock-on impact across the country. As it becomes more ingrained in everyday discourse on the news, the campaign trail, and social media, it further fans the flames of xenophobia and racism.
This narrative scapegoats and punishes a group of people for a problem that they did not create. But we know the truth. The housing emergency is the result of political choices. We are haemorrhaging social homes: there’s been a net loss of over 260,000 social rent homes in the last decade alone.
The organisations undersigned call on all parties to stamp out scapegoating and focus on building genuinely affordable social homes as the only sustainable way to end the housing emergency.
We need a new generation of good quality, secure and genuinely affordable social homes – at least 90,000 per year – for the benefit of everyone in society. This social housing must be allocated fairly, based on need, or else we will see homelessness continue to rise.
Every family, whatever their background, needs a safe and secure place to put down roots, where their home can be their foundation.
We demand social housing. Not scapegoating.
Yours sincerely,
Polly Neate CBE (Chief Executive, Shelter)
Nick Beales, Head of Campaigning, RAMFEL
Dr Shabna Begum, CEO, Runnymede Trust
Zrinka Bralo, CEO, Migrants Organise
Grace Burgess, Director, RootsMove
Tom Burgess, Executive Director, Compassion in Politics
Jabeer Butt OBE, Chief Executive, Race Equality Foundation
Sally Causer, Executive Director, Southwark Law Centre
Tom Chance, Chief Executive, Community Land Trust Network
Andrea Cleaver, CEO, Welsh Refugee Council
John Delahunty, Acting Chair, BME National
Matt Downie MBE, Chief Executive, Crisis
Natasha Elcock, Chair, Grenfell United
Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Director Institute of Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research (I-SPHERE), Heriot-Watt University
Yasmin Halima, Executive Director, JCWI
Abdirahim Hassan, Founder, Coffee Afrik
Kate Henderson, Chief Executive, National Housing Federation
Rick Henderson, CEO, Homeless Link
Tim Naor Hilton, Chief Executive, Refugee Action
Sylvia Ingmire, CEO, Roma Support Group
Alphonsine Kabagabo, Director, Women for Refugee Women
Phil Kerry, Chief Executive, New Horizon Youth Centre
Suzanne Muna, Secretary and Co-founder, Social Housing Action Campaign
Lucy Nabijou, Coordinator, Haringey Welcome
Shān Nicholas, Interim Chief Executive, Praxis
George O’Neill, CEO, Cardinal Hume Centre
Dan Paskins, Executive Director of Policy, Advocacy & Campaigns, Save the Children UK
Jacky Peacock OBE, Facilitator, Fairer Housing
Hannah Peaker, Director of Policy and Advocacy, New Economics Foundation
Fizza Qureshi, CEO, Migrants’ Rights Network
Stuart Radose, CEO, Community InfoSource
Salah Rasool, Head, Welsh Refugee Coalition
Emma Revie, CEO, The Trussell Trust
Sarah Robson, Director, Da’aro Youth Project
Sarah Sidwell, Hosting Manager, Hope at Home
Gavin Smart, CEO, Chartered Institute of Housing
Kerry Smith, Chief Executive, Helen Bamber Foundation
Enver Solomon, Chief Executive, Refugee Council
Charlotte Talbott, CEO, Emmaus UK
Nick Watts, Director, Together with Migrant Children
Jane Williams, CEO Founder, The Magpie Project
Karin Woodley CBE, Chief Executive, Cambridge House
Bridget Young, Director, NACCOM