November 9, 2020 | less than a minute read

Let's not talk about housing, let's talk about homes

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Gayle Monk

Legal Director

Get in touch

Gayle Monk

Legal Director

This article in the Municipal Journal hits the nail on the head in describing the struggles that many in the social housing and local government sectors have with the blunt tool which is a push for increased housebuilding. Yes, there is a need for more and new housing. But it's so very important that we enable housebuilding which puts community and place first, so that we can build sustainability, fairly, and with long term community interests in mind. Changing the conversation from houses to homes would help.

But we’re not really talking about houses we’re talking about homes. Homes that people want to live in and that other people want near them. Homes that are connected to places and which enhance the places they’re in. Homes in which people are happy, flourish and contribute to their communities. Shelter is a basic human need – but homes provide so much more than that. And that means you need a different type of conversation – one which is not just about how many houses you build, but about quality and connectivity, about community and place, and the character of place. Not just about planning, but about local economic development, public service ecosystems and the public realm more broadly. You can’t have that conversation from a control room in Whitehall.