-
14/7/25 8:13 pm
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Homelessness charity Crisis has announced plans to become a landlord as it hits out at those exploiting the demand for temporary accommodation.
Matt Downie, the charity’s chief executive, told The Guardian that Crisis is preparing to launch a fundraising appeal to buy its own housing stock as it can longer get access to social housing to help homeless people.
“It’s something that would have been inconceivable for my predecessors 10, 30, 50 years ago, because people would have expected both councils and housing associations to provide the stock needed for people on low incomes,” he explains. “It’s just no longer available.”
A study from Crisis led by Heriot-Watt University reveals that 299,100 households in England experienced acute homelessness in 2024, an increase of 21% since 2022 and 45% since 2012. “Nobody needs persuading that we’re in a catastrophic scenario,” says Downie.
“It’s really worrying to see more and more people have concluded that you can make money out of making people and keeping people homeless,” he adds. “The cost of temporary accommodation is astronomical but the fact that a lot of that money is going into the hands of people that are effectively exploiting the situation is really a disgrace.”
The charity has already set up its own lettings agency to help secure access to private rented housing for its clients and now aims to acquire and provide its own social housing to high-needs people with bespoke support, starting in London and Newcastle.
“Our strategy is to get to at least a thousand homes in the first phase, and we’ve got Housing First tenancy support teams in those two cities ready to go to support people. But the ambition is to move to something even bigger so that we can demonstrate that the solution to homelessness is housing.”
The government has committed £39 billion towards its social and affordable homes programme, with a target of building 180,000 new social homes over the next 10 years.
Tags:
Comments