What's special about Housing?

Cathy In 1966, the BBC screened the most famous and groundbreaking TV drama ever made - Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home. The shattering story of a young homeless couple caught in a poverty trap was followed by the launch of the homeless charity Shelter. The film won huge acclaim and awards, and raised furious debate in the Houses Of Parliament .

These days the Housing Sector exists to provide us all with good quality housing in sustainable communities.

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has put housing at the centre of his agenda. The aim is for everyone to have access to a decent home at a price they can afford, in a place where they want to live and work. This improves family life and can improve our social and economic well being. It helps to create better communities that can attract investment and skilled workers.

Three main challenges exist:

  1. More homes to meet growing demands. Housing supply is at its highest level since the 1980’s, but it is still not competing with the demand of the rising and ageing population.
  2. As well as building many new homes to keep up with demand, housing needs to be part of the solution to climate change. Working in partnership with Government agencies will make this happen.
  3. The cost of housing is now 8 times the average salary. As well as building more homes to tackle the problem, support is required in the short term for young people and families who will still struggle to get on to the property ladder.

The key priorities to tackle this are as follows;

  • New home ownership schemes give greater choice and opportunity to first time buyers, social tenants, key workers and people who rent privately;
  • All social housing will meet the decent homes standard;
  • Home Information Packs will make it easier to buy and sell a home;
  • Rough sleeping and the use of Bed and Breakfast accommodation for families are being tackled. The number of homeless households in temporary accommodation has halved;
  • The housing market renewal programme is transforming areas where deprivation is significantly reducing life chances;
  • More new homes will be built to seek to balance housing supply and demand;
  • The Supporting People Programme helps vulnerable people improve their quality of life.

Cathy and the kids

We wish you luck in your search.

To find out more about "Cathy Come Home", visit the BBC website here.

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