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UK News

Church told to 'wake up' and house the homeless

by Eno Adeogun

A cross-party panel set up by Shelter - including ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband and former Tory chairman Baroness Warsi have said £200bn needs to be spent.

Pete Cunningham from Green Pastures told Premier that social housing shortages aren't a new problem.

Speaking on Premier's News Hour, he said: "We've been facing it for the last ten-15 years so it's an ongoing crisis and a growing crisis."

Entitled Building for our future: a vision for social housing, the report urges ministers to invest in a major 20-year housebuilding programme and massively extend the criteria for who is applicable to live in social housing.

They recommend building 1.27 million homes for "those in greatest housing need", including homeless households, the disabled and long-term ill, or those living in very poor conditions.

It also wants the Government to create 1.17 million homes for what it calls "trapped renters", younger families unable to get on the housing ladder, as well as 690,000 homes for older private renters who face housing insecurity beyond retirement.

The Communities Secretary James Brokenshire has insisted the current affordable homes programme will deliver 250,000 by 2022.

However Cunningham said that figure is just the tip of the iceberg.

"At this moment in time I think you would find there are five million people that are on a waiting list who get some sort of accommodation that's either housing association or council," he explained.

"So if you look at a quarter of a million, that goes nowhere near the number of properties we really need."

He added that the Church is well placed and has the resources to make a difference to the homeless.

"Church - wake up. Let's get on with the job that Christ called us to do and that's to house the homeless."

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