Red Brick

Labour’s housing targets may also be able to provide the social and community spaces we so urgently need. Community centres are disappearing at speed, and with them the social fabric that holds many neighbourhoods together. Lessons from Cambridgeshire New Town, Northstowe has shown us the importance of starting with social spaces if we want to build thriving communities for the long-term. This article seeks to outline the lessons from community led housing that can be applied more widely. 

For generations, community centres have been the quiet glue of local life: places to gather, celebrate, disagree and organise. But that fabric is unravelling. A joint report by New Local and Rayne Foundation estimates there are around 21,000 community centres and halls across Great Britain. Many are operating under what it calls “fragmented and precarious” conditions. Between 2010 and 2023, 1,243 council-run youth centres were closed in England and Wales, according to UNISON — more than two-thirds of the total.

This is about more than buildings. As Dr Parth Patel from IPPR puts it: “Where shared spaces are lost, a sense of decline and disconnection takes root — and with it, dangerous alternatives thrive.” When the third spaces that bring people together are eroded, others fill the vacuum.

The UK is living through the long tail of austerity. Youth centres, working men’s clubs, cafés, pubs and church halls — the spaces between home and work that make places feel alive — are disappearing. Three-quarters of working men’s clubs have closed over the past 50 years.

Unlike hospitals or schools, the value of these spaces isn’t always obvious — until they’re gone. They are where trust is built, small conflicts are resolved, and a sense of belonging is forged. They anchor everyday life.

A dangerous void

The consequences are real. As Dr Sacha Hilhorst of IPPR noted after the Southport riots: “In the absence of shared spaces, misinformation and hate can fill the void, creating tinderbox conditions for violence.”

The crisis isn’t just in existing towns as new developments often repeat the same mistake: build the houses first, promise the cafés, gardens and community halls later. In Northstowe, a new town in Cambridgeshire planned for 10,000 residents, early phases offered little beyond bricks and tarmac. No community centre. No café. No shared garden. Residents felt stranded. Only after public pressure did Homes England step in to accelerate community facilities — including cohousing schemes — for phase two of development.

Cohousing points to a better way

Our organisation promotes cohousing. We believe this model may be of growing interest to the wider housing sector because it flips the traditional order of urban design. Originating in Scandinavia, it plans neighbourhoods of around 20–40 homes around shared facilities — typically a community centre, kitchen, garden or workshop — before designing the private homes themselves. Long-term stewardship is held collectively by residents, which makes these spaces financially resilient and well used. When communities themselves hold responsibility for the places they share, with guaranteed access built into the structure, these hubs can generate and sustain income over time.

In Lancashire, Lancaster Cohousing demonstrates how shared infrastructure can anchor a neighbourhood. Alongside homes, it includes co-working spaces, a vegetarian café, and public river access. Linked to Halton Senior Cohousing, a community hydroelectric scheme, woodland, and Clune Valley Community Land Trust, the site forms a local hub of social, environmental and economic activity — integrating housing with community enterprise and ecological stewardship.

The Dutch project Vrijburcht illustrates the commercial and social potential of this approach. It pairs 52 homes with a café and theatre open to the wider neighbourhood — a living piece of social infrastructure that also generates revenue.

In South London, Imani Housing Co-operative offers a powerful example of this approach. Founded in the 1980s, it emerged from a community hub created by members of London’s Black community — a space to organise, build trust and shape a shared vision before any housing existed. This early investment in people and place became the foundation for a housing co-operative that has endured for decades.

In Liverpool, Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust aims to create “a thriving, vibrant mixed community where people from all walks of life can live, work and play.” Its Granby Winter Garden is a community-run hub embedded in the housing, hosting cultural events and everyday activities that connect residents with the wider neighbourhood.

On London’s South Bank, Coin Street Community Builders speaks of being “at the heart of a diverse, vibrant and inspirational community.” Its neighbourhood centre, café and workspace are fully integrated into the housing cooperatives, offering both social and economic value to the area.

A wider opportunity

These projects show that designing for shared space early on can strengthen neighbourhoods, support inclusive communities and offer long-term economic value This approach shouldn’t be confined to cohousing. Public-facing community hubs can be embedded in affordable housing, regeneration projects and new towns. They can be cafés, kitchens, co-working spaces, gardens or workshops — but crucially, designing for community must come first, not as afterthoughts squeezed in once the houses are built.

The same principle can help revive high streets, bring abandoned farms back to life and turn brownfield sites in rural areas into thriving community anchors. When shared spaces are built in early and stewarded by residents partly for their own use, they create places that are more resilient, better loved and cheaper to maintain. They start building trust before and after the homes arrive — and make communities harder to fracture. In a time when our shared spaces are disappearing, building them in from the start is an act of collective strength — a commitment to the kind of society we want to be

On day one of the Labour Party Conference, Sir Michael Lyons New Towns Taskforce published their final report to Government to much excitement. The Taskforce’s expectation that many of the New Towns will significantly exceed the target of 10,000 homes, and the commitment to place-making, have stoked optimism for the project.

The steps which the Government have so far taken to tackle the housing crisis are welcome and their continued commitment to New Towns will be crucial to this endeavour. We are excited to see these existing measures come together to facilitate this project.

New Towns showed us that, where there is political will and a sense of national mission, the UK delivers, and the potential to tackle this at scale excites me the most. We also know, however, that with an initiative of the ambition and scale of New Towns, there will be bumps in the road. In order to meet and overcome these, the Government must establish long-term partnerships so that momentum continues beyond the current political cycle.

Housing associations must be brought on as partners from the outset. When the original New Towns were established, housing associations were in their infancy, and the overwhelming majority of social and affordable housing was provided and managed by development corporations and local authorities. Yet we now live in a world where, over the last 10 years, housing associations have delivered 80% of all new affordable homes. Without us, the target of 40% affordable homes for New Towns will not be met.

Partnership between developers will also be key to the delivery of New Towns. MTVH has a track record of these partnerships, the largest being Clapham Park in south London, which we are transforming from a 1,968 home estate in need of regeneration into a 4,203 home community. To build at a large scale in the current environment, as Government is planning to, partnerships like these will be needed – to fuel delivery and weather inevitable storms.  Partnering with developer Vistry and working strategically with Lambeth Council and the GLA, has enabled us to avoid barriers and build at pace. Using a similar model would be a key facilitator for the governments’ New Towns.

The communities surrounding these New Town sites must also be viewed as partners in their development. Many of the 100 suggested sites are said to be urban extensions to existing towns – therefore it will be vital for ongoing social cohesion that those existing towns are consulted.

We must invite these communities on this journey with us and demonstrate to them that the wonderful things we hope to build and do with New Towns will be accessible and beneficial to the existing community.

At Clapham Park, we have been committed to ensuring that the regeneration is guided by the voices and experiences of local people. As a result, a recent independent social impact assessment found that residents are experiencing measurable improvements to their community and has produced clear recommendations on what would support the community further. Engaging communities in developments, especially on the scale of New Towns, allows us to deliver the change that the community wants.

The New Towns project must follow a similar model – listen to these communities and build the New Towns that they wish to see, to visit and to live in helping to foster mixed tenure communities which are economically resilient, socially inclusive, and future-proof.

Funding which is well co-ordinated and approached with an ethos of partnership will be crucial here.

The original model was state-led, with limited private sector participation. In the current climate it would seem inevitable that this new generation must make better use of wider funding streams and take a more collaborative approach to the funding of New Towns.

The National Housing Bank is expected to support the delivery of over 500,000 homes with £16bn of public investment, and the ability to leverage a further £53bn in private investment. This is a good example of using Government’s financial standing to crowd-in private funds, and a similar approach can be used to ensure New Towns have the diverse funding they need to become, and remain, flourishing communities.

No one organisation can address the housing crisis alone. If New Towns are to be built effectively, be financially sustainable in the long term, and deliver the flourishing communities England wants to see – the foundation must be partnership.

When the Government set its mission to deliver 1.5 million new homes this Parliament, the headline number captured the ambition. But for those of us who have spent the past year talking to the people charged with making it happen, the real story lies beneath that headline.

Over 12 months I’ve visited 10 councils around London and the Home Counties filming and interviewing officers, councillors and, more recently, residents. I asked them what is working in getting more homes built, and what needs to change to get more built. The result is the first Annual Review of 1.5M New Homes: The Local Government Challenge, co-authored with Anna Clarke (Director of Policy and Public Affairs, The Housing Forum) and launched at the Building the Future conference in London this month. It distils the voices of those at the coalface of delivery, revealing both the scale of the obstacles and the ingenuity with which councils are finding ways around them.

Their voices matter because very few homes get built in this country without a council being involved. Whether as the planning authority granting permission, a joint-venture partner with the private sector, or — especially for social and affordable homes — the direct developer and landlord, councils sit at the heart of every new housing scheme.

Ten barriers, one system

I asked councils to rank the challenges they face, according to the impact that overcoming those challenges would have on accelerating housing delivery. The 10 biggest: viability; funding; building-safety regulation; market stability and investor confidence; land availability and assembly; density and infrastructure; construction capacity; community engagement and trust; planning and local plans; and council capacity.

At first glance they look like separate problems. In practice, they are deeply interconnected. Rising build costs undermine viability; safety rules delay schemes and increase costs; high interest rates and a weak private-sales market remove the cross-subsidy that councils and housing associations rely on; skills shortages stretch both councils and contractors.

Trying to fix one issue in isolation, as one panellist at our launch put it, “just pushes the problem somewhere else in the system.” This complexity was echoed by Anna Clarke:

“When people say planning is the problem, they often mean three different things. It’s not one issue — it’s a combination of policy, capacity and cost. All of those feed back into viability.”

A funding and viability crunch

The Review found that the cost of building homes has risen by 30–40 per cent in five years, but land prices and grant levels have not adjusted. Eight out of 10 councils ranked viability as their top constraint. Councils in high-value areas, which ought to see strong cross-subsidy from private sales, reported stalled sites and growing gaps between what can be built and what’s needed.

Danny Sutcliffe, Partner at housing consultancy Red Loft, speaking at the launch, reminded us that this is not a recent crisis:

“We’ve under-funded affordable housing for 45 years. We’re one and a half million homes down on 1980. If there’s no cross-subsidy because the private market isn’t working, there’s no affordable-housing delivery.”

In short, councils are being asked to deliver more, faster, with less. Many are diverting funds into fire-safety and decarbonisation work, leaving little headroom to invest in new build. Access to borrowing is constrained, and bids for competitive grant funding absorb scarce officer time.

Regulation, markets and capacity

Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the wake of the new regime of building-safety rules. Councils overwhelmingly support the principles, but implementation has been slow and confusing. One officer described the new Gateway process as “an obstacle to delivery” that had left schemes on hold for 18 months or more.

Meanwhile, market instability is rattling confidence. Developers are struggling to sell homes off-plan; contractors are going bust mid-project. Housing associations — long the delivery arm of public housing policy — are retrenching to focus on existing stock. As Peter George, Strategic Director of Economy and Sustainability at the London Borough of Ealing, told the panel:

“In London the challenges are more acute now than they were 10 years ago. Viability, funding and investor confidence top the list — not planning.”

These pressures feed directly into the growing capacity problem inside local government. Planners, legal officers and development specialists are in short supply. Councils that went through financial crises have shed expertise they cannot easily replace.

Policy change and local leadership

Councils are not waiting passively for help. Many are adopting creative solutions: taking a proactive stance on stalled sites, negotiating flexible tenure mixes, and using joint ventures or land partnerships to unlock development. Sutton, for example, has moved a 34-home scheme from concept to planning in just two months.

Yet, as the report argues, national policy will have to shift too. Councils consistently called for:

• Long-term, flexible grant funding rather than short-term competitive pots.
• Support for building at higher densities where appropriate.
• Investment in skills and construction-sector capacity.
• Reward and recognition for councils that deliver.

A stable and predictable funding environment would allow councils to plan confidently and attract private-sector partners. As Ben Binns, Assistant Director (Development) at Cambridge City Council, explained:

“Access to the same kind of affordable-housing grant available in London would make a huge difference — it would unlock our confidence to regenerate.”

Culture, collaboration and risk

Beyond finance and regulation, the campaign found a more subtle but equally powerful challenge: culture. Many councils remain deeply risk-averse. As Sutcliffe put it, “People are scared to take risk because if something goes wrong, it’s a scandal. We need to learn to take small, managed risks and accept that not everything will work first time.”

That cultural shift applies to the wider sector too. Councils, housing associations and developers each control different pieces of the delivery puzzle. Bringing them together requires trust and shared purpose. Several councils told us that their most successful schemes came from partnerships where the political leadership, the development team and private investors all aligned behind a clear long-term vision.

Technology and the future

One surprise from the panel discussion was how little progress most councils have made in using digital technology to speed up delivery. Cambridge admitted it still manages its assets “on spreadsheets.” Ealing is experimenting with artificial intelligence to process planning applications faster, and several councils are exploring digital tools for public engagement. But there is clearly untapped potential for smarter data, predictive modelling and digital-twin technologies to reshape how councils plan and deliver housing.

A collective challenge

After a year of interviews, the message is clear: councils are willing, capable and determined, but the system around them is not. Fixing one policy lever at a time won’t deliver 1.5 million homes. It will take a whole-system effort — aligning national policy, local leadership, market confidence and community trust.

The 1.5M New Homes campaign will continue visiting councils in other parts of the country over the coming year to document how they are rising to that challenge. Each conversation adds a piece to the picture of how local government can once again become not just the regulator, but the builder and enabler of the homes our communities need.

“Not everything works in every local authority,” Sutcliffe reminded us, “but there are bits we can all take away and think, that could work for us. That’s what this report is about — sharing what’s working.”

The Annual Review can be downloaded from www.1-5m.co.uk.

This was first published in the Young Fabians journal Anticipations

Anyone reading Red Brick is engaged enough in politics to know the extent of Labour’s housing achievements one year into government. Planning reform, shake-ups in private renting and leasehold, £39 billion into social housebuilding, Labour’s record has been impressive, and every stakeholder I speak with as Red Brick’s editor is blown away by the new Government’s progress.  

The crucial question for anyone in politics, however, is ‘so what’? Two critical factors impede Labour’s ability to turn housing success into political reward. The first is that the Government’s rhetoric is focused on outputs rather than outcomes. Even if Labour builds 1.5 million homes, turns around social housebuilding, and reforms problematic tenures, the price of buying and renting will continue to rise, even if this increase would have been lower had Labour not acted so boldly.

The second is that Labour is likely to miss its headline targets. Housebuilding runs in cycles of five years or longer, and even after a sprint of bold reforms, housing starts in the first quarter of 2025 were 9% lower than in 2024 due to a long tail of Tory failure.

In this context, Labour needs to consider the right framework with which to talk about housing, to future-proof the likely missing of the 1.5 million homes goal and to create a cohesive narrative of its success in this key policy area.  

The first step of this is to consider how voters interact with the housing crisis. First of these is through the lens of cost, when asked about the most important housing issue facing Britain, 50% of voters picked the cost of renting, followed by 49% identifying the cost of buying (Leeds Building Society).  The other way is through the housing crisis’ visible impacts, most notably around homelessness and rough sleeping, with 46% of people thinking that homelessness is a significant issue in their local area (Centre for Homelessness Impact/Ipsos).

To address the first issue, Labour needs to pivot its discourse on tenure reform to a cost-of-living issue. For instance, while Labour campaigners frequently bring up ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions as the key measure in Renters’ Rights Bill, voters look even more favourably on limiting the number of rent increases per year (70% support) or enabling tenants to challenge rent increases (70%), than ending Section 21 (58%) (Ipsos).

At the same time, Labour needs to pivot its housebuilding narrative from talking about housing as a good in and of itself, to a laser focus in both policy and communications on the homes which will deliver the most social good.

An average voter may not connect a 3-bed newbuild with addressing rough sleeping, whereas it is easy to argue that a social home helps a long-term private renter, a prospective home buyer, as well as those with greatest housing need. While voters are supportive of new homes in general, they are even more enthusiastic about building when it is affordable, on brownfield sites, and in well-connected locations (YouGov/CPRE). Labour cannot only say that is building more homes, it also has to make a case about the value added by those homes.

‘Backing the builders not the blockers’, worked well at the last election. But, as the Government, Labour can credibly be viewed as the establishment, and needs to be careful about siding with unpopular vested interests. Only 24% of voters have a positive view of landlords (YouGov), and only 2% trust developers when it comes to large-scale housing applications (Grosvenor). Meanwhile, the public see developers as second only to the Tories’ in their responsibility for the housing crisis, with 63% viewing housebuilders as partially or largely responsible for causing the country’s housing issues (YouGov).

The Government recently won national headlines for fining developers for anti-competitive practices, showing how even moderate moves here can win broad acclaim. Reforms to enforce social housing requirements on ‘grey belt’ sites and diversify the housing industry by encouraging SME housebuilders can build on this narrative that Labour is taking on unpopular ‘vested interests’ in housing.

Meanwhile, across the aisle are the Conservatives, who failed to take action for 15 years, allowed costs to rise, and failed to act on poor behaviour on developers or landlords (many of the latter group making up their benches). And waiting in the wings is Reform UK, whose leadership is replete with property tycoons such as Nick Candy and Richard Tice. The contrast message could not be staring us any more clearly in the face.

One year into Government, and Labour’s laundry list of housing achievements is a mile long. But to reap electoral gain we need to rewrite this into the poetry of campaigning. Tackling costs and vested interests alike can and should be our mantra to show voters that Labour is on their side, that Labour represents a break from the past, and that our greatest electoral contenders would threaten this progress.

When it comes to improving people’s lives through better quality housing, the housing sector working in partnership with government has a record to be proud of. Since introducing the first Decent Homes Standard in 2000, more than three million homes have been improved to meet standards in decency, including more than one million social homes.

Between 2000 and 2023, the overall number of homes failing to meet these standards dropped by almost 50%.

In the social housing sector, the story is even better, with nearly three-quarters of non-decent homes having been brought up to standard – meaning that the proportion of poor housing has fallen from nearly four in ten homes, to one in ten. But there’s more to do.

At the Hyde Group, 99% of the homes we provide meet the current decent homes standard.

These improvements have ensured millions of people now live in safer, warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes.

However, expectations of what ‘decent’ means have, rightly, moved on since the Decent Homes Standard was last revised 19 years ago. We know that it no longer reflects the needs and lifestyles of our customers.

Labour’s five-point plan for a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing, sets out an ambitious new vision for the sector.

It rightly prioritises both the delivery of new homes and improving existing ones.

The upcoming regulatory changes affecting social housing are significant. Awaab’s Law, coming into force this October, will require landlords to investigate and fix emergency hazards within 24 hours, including electrical hazards, loss of water supply, and severe damp and mould that is having a material impact on a resident’s health.  

The updated Decent Homes Standard, which recently concluded consultation, proposes new expectations around energy efficiency, safety and overall decency, like the removal of age as a criterion for disrepair, requiring window restrictors and carpets and including kitchens and bathrooms as key components for achieving decency.

Some of these reforms are vital and some are not essential, such as carpets in every room. This needs sensible debate and amendment.

However, these reforms come at a significant cost, and we must be realistic about the pace at which we can deliver them without additional funding.

For the Hyde Group, we’ve estimated that complying with Awaab’s Law will cost an additional £2 million annually.

And meeting the new Decent Homes Standard will require more than £60 million.

For social housing providers these costs come on top of the record £8.8 billion spent on repairs and maintenance in 2023-24, driven by building safety costs, rising insurance premiums, and inflationary pressures.

At the same time, the resources we have to deliver for customers has fallen behind. Rents in the social housing sector are  15% lower in real terms than in 2015.

To achieve the change needed, housing associations need the government to pull all the financial levers at their disposal, chief among them is a rent settlement that includes a more generous rate of rent convergence.

That’s why step three of Labour’s plan, regulation, cannot be achieved without step two – rebuilding the sector’s capacity to borrow and invest. Rent convergence is central to this.

The Ggovernment has proposed to reintroduce rent convergence, which is extremely welcome. We think this modest increase, around £156 annually per affected household, strikes a balance between affordability for residents and the sector’s urgent need for investment.

Social housing remains significantly more affordable than the private sector. Our average social rent is £139 per week, and across the country, social rents are about 64% lower than market rents. But successive rent caps and cuts have left us far behind inflation.

At Hyde, 45% of our homes are currently below the rent level they should be at as a result of government intervention.

Getting this right is about ensuring every customer lives in a home that is safe, warm, and decent. It’s about giving housing associations the financial stability to deliver on Labour’s regulatory ambitions without sacrificing future supply or our wraparound services that support thriving communities.

In our panel session at Conference on Monday we’ll discuss how we can make Labour’s vision for a new Decent Homes Standard a reality.

At Hyde we’re proud of the work we’ve done to create more decent homes over the past two decades.

We stand ready to work with government again to make the new regulatory regime a success.

But to do this, we need rent convergence to help cover our operating costs.

If we want to drive up the quality of our social homes, we need government to make social housing financially sustainable over the long term.

You can hear more from Neal Ackral at Labour Housing Group’s fringe at Labour Party Conference in partnership with Hyde Housing: How can Labour improve the condition of existing social homes?(Monday 29th: 11:00 – 12:00, Arena Room – Kielder, Lower Level ACC Arena).

Since becoming Chief Executive of Riverside, I have been travelling the length and breadth of the country visiting the homes we provide and the amazing difference our care and support services make.

Every day we see our services not only improve but turn people’s lives around and are a genuine lifeline for people. We know these services are the difference between just surviving or thriving. Our services provide a vital human connection which people desperately need.

The positive impact my colleagues make and the support they provide across the UK is nothing short of inspirational and humbling.

We are very proud of the help and support and the reach we deliver. But the truth is Riverside and other supported housing colleagues are facing extraordinarily challenging circumstances.

The biggest challenge is funding.

Truth be told, this funding challenge means that Riverside is not providing the scale of care and support services that we once did, but the scale of the need still remains.

In some cases, the length of the funding and the expectation to either deliver the same or more on the same funding, doesn’t deliver the life changing care and support our customers deserve. 

In April, our Chief Officer of Care and Support, John Glenton, was part of a National Housing Federation delegation, which hand delivered a letter to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 10 Downing Street to warn of this financial crisis facing supported housing.

The letter was signed by more than 170 organisations, from fellow housing associations, charities, local councils and frontline services.

With many local authorities in extremely difficult financial positions, they are having to make really tough decisions because of their challenging budgets. When these decisions are made, we are seeing valuable supported housing services being decommissioned because they have to make choices on where to save.

The sad truth, however, is that, once these vital supported housing services are gone, the buildings are often rented or sold for other purposes, never to be replaced.

However, on a national level this is a false economy because the cost of running a supported housing service is much cheaper than a homeless family being placed in high-cost temporary accommodation. And as a country we end up paying more for our people to have poorer quality of lives and outcomes.

This government has done sterling work to deliver long-term funding certainty and stability to the housing sector. This includes an historic long-term settlement on social rents and providing the biggest boost to social housing in a generation. As a sector, we are genuinely excited about the future.

Now is the time for this government to push forward again and provide that same long-term funding certainty for some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Supported housing, as we all know, exists to help people who need some additional support to live independently or to get their life back on track following the trauma time in their life.

Now is the time for this government to come out and show how it’s going to step up for supported housing.

Labour has a proud history in our sector with the Blair administration halving homelessness, almost eradicating rough sleeping and delivering the dedicated £1.6bn ‘Supporting People’ grant which transformed supported housing services.

We at Riverside are here to stand beside the government as willing partners with deep expertise and experience in delivering supported housing at scale.

Our message to Ministers and government is a simple one. Come and talk to us, come and visit our services. Come and see how we can provide a vital human connection which with investment can turn people’s lives around.

Let’s work together to build the world-class supported housing services our people deserve.

Paul Dolan is CEO of Riverside is a major charitable provider of social and affordable housing across England and Scotland, with more than 75,000 homes in 159 different local authorities and one of the biggest providers of care & support services across the country.  The organisation supports people in a range of settings across mental health, homelessness, youth services, extra care for older people, and veterans supported housing.

You can hear more from Paul Dolan at Labour Housing Group’s fringe at Labour Party Conference in partnership with Riverside and Homelesslink: ,‘What is needed to end homelessness and rough sleeping under Labour?’ from 09:30-10:30 on Monday 29th September in the Arena Room – Kielder, ACC within the secure zone.

Tens of thousands of women in England are homeless, and 40% cite domestic abuse as a contributing factor. We cannot ignore this.

The full scale of this crisis is also likely being hidden. Only around 37% of domestic abuse cases are reported, and it often takes over six years for a woman to leave an abusive home.

Let me be clear: men experience domestic abuse too. But of the estimated 2.3 million people who experienced domestic abuse in the last year, 1.6 million were women. Women are more likely to be repeat victims, suffer serious injuries, and face a higher risk of being killed by their abuser. They also report higher levels of fear and coercive control.

Systemic inequalities make this worse. Women often aren’t believed when they report abuse, and with less than 2% of cases leading to conviction, it’s easy to see why so many feel trapped.

So how does domestic abuse lead to homelessness?

Financial dependency is a major factor. Many survivors rely economically on their abuser, making it difficult to access private rented housing due to poor credit or employment histories. And with over 1.3 million households on England’s social housing waiting list, the chances of finding a safe home are painfully slim and fleeing survivors often have nowhere to go.

This crisis deeply impacts children too. Government data shows a record 164,040 homeless children currently living in temporary accommodation.

It’s an insensitive myth that women will leave when things “get bad enough.” On average, it takes seven attempts and more than six years to leave for good. Many return due to financial insecurity, lack of housing, or fear. Other factors such as race, disability, and sexuality further complicate these challenges.

The relationship between domestic abuse and homelessness is complex and often cyclical. Some become homeless because of abuse; others enter abusive relationships to avoid homelessness. Many survivors become “hidden homeless,” sofa surfing or squatting, making it hard for support services to reach them.

Rates of domestic abuse often also spike around holidays due to financial pressure, alcohol, and social expectations. During these times, support services are harder to access, making it even more difficult for victims to seek help. Those forced to flee in winter face added challenges like cold-related health risks and worsened mental health.

So what can we do?

One solution is requiring perpetrators, not survivors, to leave the home. This promising approach has risks, however, as perpetrators still know where the survivor lives, and enforcement can be dangerous. The upcoming Crime and Policing Bill could help, by giving housing associations the power to evict individuals rather than whole households and this is certainly something worth exploring and would hopefully give more women confidence in coming forward.

At Places for People, we’ve also seen real success embedding trauma-informed approaches into our services. Since 2017, our Living Plus team has worked with organisations like Homeless Link to train staff and review policies through a trauma-informed lens. This has transformed how we support survivors.

However, trauma-informed care isn’t yet widely adopted. Barriers include unclear definitions, cultural resistance, and inconsistent training. Despite being low-cost to implement, it requires full commitment from the housing sector. Providers must prioritise staff training, policy reviews, and meaningful resident involvement.

We also need to make Housing First the default. Secure housing gives survivors a foundation to address other issues like trauma or addiction but scaling this approach is difficult due to limited affordable housing, resource constraints, and inconsistent political support. Government must invest in homes, long-term funding, and collaborative partnerships to make Housing First a reality.

Supported housing is another key part of the solution. While the Government has made progress on affordable homes, supported housing was missing from the recent Spending Review. That must change. Supported housing meets complex needs and is essential to solving homelessness.

There’s also huge power in simply doing good. At Places for People we go Beyond Homes and that means offering the support we can see people need. I’m really proud that we are supporting the Buddy Bag initiative which provides backpacks filled with essential items like toiletries, clothing, and comfort items such as books and teddy bears to children moving into emergency care, particularly those fleeing domestic abuse.   

In conclusion, domestic abuse is a major, and often hidden, driver of homelessness among women and children. Tackling it requires a joined-up, trauma-informed, gender-sensitive response across housing, social care, and justice systems. With the right investment, policies, and cultural change, we can build safer, more supportive pathways out of abuse and into stable, secure homes.

You can hear more from Branwen Evans at Labour Housing Group’s fringe at Labour Party Conference in partnership with Places for People:Safe homes for survivors of domestic abuse – what does Labour need to do? (Tuesday 30th: 11:00 – 12:00, Arena Room – Kielder, Lower Level ACC Arena).