Homes beyond politics: our ask for the next government

As we look ahead to the next five years, both for the Quality of Life Foundation and the country, our co-founder and director Matthew Morgan looks beyond party politics to consider what we really need from our housing system.

Today we have published the outcomes we would like to see over the next five years, regardless of who comes to power, to create homes and neighbourhoods that improve people’s life over the long term. This is in advance of a more detailed strategy that we will be sharing when the government is in place next month.  

It will be the means by which we evaluate both the success of our own organisation and of the success of the government over the course of the next parliament. 

The vision we have outlined is a long-term endeavour that requires long-term thinking and a pluralistic approach, working across disciplines and departments, from national to local government, planning to public health, involving industry and civil society. 

At its heart is a way of identifying local needs based on available evidence and asking people to outline their priorities through effective community engagement. This provides a golden thread for change in any area, whether that means the creation of new housing or the regeneration of an existing community, which can be followed through the lifetime of projects and used to assess how successful the outcomes are through post-occupancy evaluation. 

The problem with politics

But this way of working, as simple as it sounds, does require support from the government, and the general election is a reminder of just how perverse politics can be. There are few things as political as housing, not just in terms of how it’s approached through ideological lenses of the individual and the state, but how it is used to further particular agendas and deliver on all manner of priorities outside of people’s basic needs. 

And that creates its own problems. 

Shackling the housing system with the twin demands of economic growth and individual aspiration, for example, might sound appealing as a political narrative, but will it deliver the healthy, resilient homes and neighbourhoods we need? 

The pursuit of growth will see a continued reliance on a broken delivery model based on the extraction of profit from place. And the appeal to individual aspiration, based on increasing home ownership, is a false promise that has led us to the mess we are in now.

Our homes and neighbourhoods

Our homes and neighbourhoods are, first and foremost, our physical, social and psychological shelter, which many millions simply do not have access to, with social housing provision central to any plan.

Homes and neighbourhoods are part of our national infrastructure, as essential as water or energy to our national success, and need to be delivered in a way that recognises that, with accountability baked in and a recognition – as we are now beginning to see with energy and water – that increased shareholder dividends are unlikely to produce the better overall outcomes we seek. 

A call for the next government

Above all, homes and neighbourhoods are the most effective mechanisms we have for reducing health inequalities and mitigating climate change. Homes really are health. And resilient neighbourhoods are our best defence against the climate emergency we face.  

So my call for the next government would to be bold enough to recognise what our homes and neighbourhoods can and should be; equitable, secure, healthy and resilient. 

Surely  that’s a good base for both our economy and aspirations – the sort of future we could all believe in.