Paradigm’s CEO leads new social housing campaign

A consortium of leading South East housing associations has released a major new piece of research into the housing crisis by a former government economist.

CASE (Consortium of Associations in the South East), chaired by Paradigm Housing’s Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Bailes, will be lobbying local and national politicians in the run-up to the general election to educate them about the new research and persuade them to adopt the five-point plan CASE proposes.

The report titled ‘The Housing Challenge for the Next Government’, compiled by economist Paul Chamberlain, shows that the next government will face a shortfall of 1.2 million homes over 10 years, 80% of which represents the need for social housing. The deficit will be especially acute in the South East, where 54,000 homes need to be built every year.

The CASE research proposes a five-point plan to boost social and affordable housing supply:

• Re-introduce supply targets
• Create tenure sub-targets
• Increase funding, including a longer-term (10-year) Affordable Housing Programme
• Maintain the focus on shared ownership
• Review the social rent formulae

Matthew Bailes said: “With an election only months away, we are calling on all parties to come forward with a long-term strategy to tackle what has become an acute housing crisis, including in the South East. The supply of social housing has consistently fallen way short of need. Unless this changes, the problems of homelessness, overcrowding and falling home ownership will continue to get worse – and the costs to taxpayers of a failing system will continue to grow.”

You’ll find full details of the research and the five-point plan on the CASE website: www.caseforhousing.org.

For press enquiries, please contact info@caseforhousing.org.