100 signatures reached
To: Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Universal basic homes. A secure home for everyone.
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Start building a million new homes as soon as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted and make them freely available to anyone who needs them, for life. Initially anyone in public service.
Why is this important?
Over 100 years ago, after the First World War one of the first actions of Lloyd George’s government was to promise to provide ‘homes fit for heroes’.
A century later we have still failed to deliver on that promise.
30 years later, after the Second World War, with Government debt nearly two and a half times GDP, we as a country decided that everyone should have a right to Healthcare, Education and a Pension, but for some reason didn’t include homes, one of the most basic necessities of life.
Still, for the next 20 years we behaved as if we were still including homes in the things people were entitled to as a right, between 1947 and 1967 Local Authorities built three million homes. Then they stopped, and in 1980 almost all those homes we’d built were sold off. Now almost all building of homes is done by private builders. Private builders will build homes fit for heroes, as long as those heroes can pay.
How many of today’s heroes can afford one of those homes.
Unfortunately tens of thousands of people will lose their lives in the UK because of Covid-19. Of those that survive hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, will lose their livelihoods, and they almost all risk losing their homes as a result.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Right now we spend £10,000 a year per household, every year, on Healthcare, Education and Pensions (£320 billion, close to the £350 billion Rishi Sunak pledged to protect business). We can build a home for £30,000. I know, I’ve helped do it. Three years of the money we spend on Health, Education and Pensions and everyone could have a home for life. A home that may last a hundred years. Never need to pay rent again, never need to pay a mortgage again. How much would that transform people’s lives?
We don’t even need to build a home for everyone, most of the homes we need are already built, we just need to build enough more, and come up with a new form of possession. We should all have security of tenure in our own homes.
£100 billion, the amount we spend every year on Health, Education and Pensions would build a million homes at £100,000 each. We could build enough homes for everyone. If we want to.
Why should we have to pay for a home all our life?
Why should we not have a right to a home for life?
Why should we risk losing our homes whenever something else goes wrong in our lives?
We should return to building enough homes for everyone to have one, the right sort of homes, in the right places, and give people security in their homes.
A century later we have still failed to deliver on that promise.
30 years later, after the Second World War, with Government debt nearly two and a half times GDP, we as a country decided that everyone should have a right to Healthcare, Education and a Pension, but for some reason didn’t include homes, one of the most basic necessities of life.
Still, for the next 20 years we behaved as if we were still including homes in the things people were entitled to as a right, between 1947 and 1967 Local Authorities built three million homes. Then they stopped, and in 1980 almost all those homes we’d built were sold off. Now almost all building of homes is done by private builders. Private builders will build homes fit for heroes, as long as those heroes can pay.
How many of today’s heroes can afford one of those homes.
Unfortunately tens of thousands of people will lose their lives in the UK because of Covid-19. Of those that survive hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, will lose their livelihoods, and they almost all risk losing their homes as a result.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Right now we spend £10,000 a year per household, every year, on Healthcare, Education and Pensions (£320 billion, close to the £350 billion Rishi Sunak pledged to protect business). We can build a home for £30,000. I know, I’ve helped do it. Three years of the money we spend on Health, Education and Pensions and everyone could have a home for life. A home that may last a hundred years. Never need to pay rent again, never need to pay a mortgage again. How much would that transform people’s lives?
We don’t even need to build a home for everyone, most of the homes we need are already built, we just need to build enough more, and come up with a new form of possession. We should all have security of tenure in our own homes.
£100 billion, the amount we spend every year on Health, Education and Pensions would build a million homes at £100,000 each. We could build enough homes for everyone. If we want to.
Why should we have to pay for a home all our life?
Why should we not have a right to a home for life?
Why should we risk losing our homes whenever something else goes wrong in our lives?
We should return to building enough homes for everyone to have one, the right sort of homes, in the right places, and give people security in their homes.
