A Labour Party member in Wiltshire is supporting our campaign to end RTB and will be submitting our model motion to her CLP for the Labour Conference in October. She tells us about the experience of homelessness which results from the shortage of council housing.
“I’ve experienced homelessness with my two children and the grim wait for vacant social housing. I can’t remember anything more dehumanizing. As an individual, you feel like a worthless outcast. As a parent, you feel like a failure.
Homelessness compounds every other challenge you may be facing in life. This, in turn, destroys your self-belief and self-confidence, your optimism and hope, and every single dream you ever had of a good life for your family.
The longer you are homeless, the worse its effects become, taking a toll on your health and well-being and making the job of helping some homeless people much harder in the long run – at extra, needless expense to society.
No matter how supportive a welfare system is for people unable to purchase their own property or meet basic living expenses, it will fail spectacularly if their underpinning human right to have a suitable place to call home is not granted first and foremost.
Thank you for pursuing this. We must have a preserved bedrock of social housing, protected from market rent forces, for UK residents who cannot afford to buy but, nevertheless, possess full rights like everyone else on these islands to have a home for life.
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 