“We have come together in a way that is completely phenomenal and utterly unprecedented.”
In was March 2015 and David Orr, then CEO of the National Housing Federation, was closing the Homes for Britain Rally.
2,300 people from over 300 housing organisations had come together in Methodist Central Hall in Westminster ahead of the General Election to call on all political parties to end the housing crisis.
All were united in a single mission – to make housing a top political issue for the first time in decades.
There had never been a housing event like it before. Compered by Jonathan Dimbleby, it had given voice to people at the sharp end of the crisis, from those priced out and experiencing homelessness to those working on its front line. It brought together the full political spectrum, with cabinet level representation from all the main political parties.
Looking back, it marked my first experience of social entrepreneurship. It was the first time I’d had an idea and gone from a blank sheet of paper to making it a reality.
It had all started a few years earlier when I got my first job in housing, heading up the influencing work of the National Housing Federation, the trade body for the housing association sector. Having come from parliament I had seen how housing was the biggest issue in MPs’ post bags and was excited about working on such a politically prominent social challenge. Then I started the job.
I’ll never forget going to my first set of party conferences in the role and being completely taken aback by the fact housing had almost no national political traction. I saw an industry battling to make housing relevant, with organisations vying for the little political attention that was on offer.
I left that conference season asking myself – if the industry came together and collaborated to raise housing’s collective profile, could we shift national political perceptions?
To answer that I set myself a challenge - at the next General Election we would put on the biggest housing rally in a generation, uniting the industry behind a call for housing to be taken seriously at the top levels of politics. We would know we’d been successful if housing became a top five political issue.
I was on a mission. Arriving home from that party conference I got in touch with all the national housing bodies inviting them to be on the steering group of an exciting new collaborative venture. To say my optimism was more than matched by scepticism in the sector would be an understatement. However, after months of badgering people to at least come to a first meeting, I managed to get a few of the national bodies in a room. To give us a shared sense of identify I chose a name, Homes for Britain.
We started small, putting on a shared reception at the next party conferences. Hundreds turned up, building enough momentum to get buy in for a shared campaign. The scale would be like nothing we had been done before. With funding from the National Housing Federation and backing from every major national organisation in housing, we would put on the Homes for Britain Rally, alongside a nationwide advertising campaign to win public hearts and minds.
Homes for Britain became a true collective endeavour. My brilliant team at the National Housing Federation led the work with huge creativity and drive, working alongside colleagues from across the organisation as well as staff from a broad range of housing bodies. In the end 2,300 people from over 300 organisations came together in one place at one time, creating a moment of industry-wide collaboration which had never happened before.
The event gained significant profile, becoming the National Housing Federation’s biggest media day. Most importantly the industry proved that through meaningful collaboration we could push housing from the margins to the political mainstream. At the previous General Election housing had placed 16th on the public’s priorities. By election day in 2015 it had broken into the top five for the first time since the 1980s.
While we had achieved what we set out to do, in some ways it was bittersweet. The optimism in the hall that day, and the commitments made by the senior politicians who attended, sadly didn’t translate into the ambitious policies needed in the subsequent years, with some measures brought in that were actively unhelpful. It was a salient reminder that bold change isn’t easy, takes longer than you imagine, and has many moments of disappointment. We are still not nearly where we need to be on housing.
However, what did change was national public sentiment. Today, there is a clear national public expectation that politicians take action on housing. It’s such a clear call that it’s hard to imagine that there were decades when the issue was barely mentioned at a General Election. 2015 was the moment that changed, in part because an industry chose to come together for the first time and collaborate UK-wide.
Could 2024 be the housing election? In their manifesto, Labour have pledged to "deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation", with a raft of policies from support for housing associations and councils to build, to reform of the planning system. The Conservatives have committed to 1.6 million homes during the next parliament, while the Liberal Democrats have pledged to deliver 150,000 social homes a year.
Some remain sceptical that these pledges will translate into the bold action needed. However, the fact all major parties have put housing front and centre of their manifestos is at the very least recognition that housing can no longer be ignored.
I hope the 2024 General Election marks the moment when we begin to end the housing crisis once and for all. Millions of people across the country are relying on it.
Watch the summary video of the Homes for Britain Rally - Homes for Britain Rally - YouTube
