Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #social-housing, aggregated by home.social.
Blue for poor, yellow for posh: the London maps exposing centuries of terrible housing
By Jessica Murray Social affairs correspondent
From rent strikes to squatting, a new show reveals how people have managed to keep a roof over their head in London – and the mould and astronomical rents that persist
#Exhibitions #Culture #Museums #Socialhistory #Society #Socialhousing #London #Housing #Squatting #Poverty #TheGuardian #JessicaMurraySocialaffairscorrespondent
‘It’s miserable’: London tower residents fear disaster with post-Grenfell scaffolding still up
By Jessica Murray Social affairs correspondent
Delays from building safety regulator mean Archway Heights is beset by security and vandalism problems
#Housing #UKnews #Communities #Society #London #GrenfellTowerfire #Socialhousing #TheGuardian #JessicaMurraySocialaffairscorrespondent
Are you a victim of abuse looking to leave? If you want priority access to Rent-geared-to-income housing you need to wait to apply until you have a letter from a professional who states you told them you were abused. Don't know anyone willing to write a letter for you, that's an extra 5 years on the waitlist.
Why are rough sleepers dying a stone’s throw from luxury waterfront houses in Victoria?
By Cait Kelly
There’s a simple solution to homelessness, advocates say. You need a house, and you need support
#Victoria #Homelessness #Australianews #Poverty #Housing #Socialhousing #Welfare #TheGuardian #CaitKelly
They asked for 80 homes – she gave them 157! Council-housing miracle named Britain’s best new building
By Oliver Wainwright
Rising from bluebell woodlands and framed by rolling hills, this cluster of pink and brown brick towers in Croydon is a bittersweet winner of the prestigious RIBA Stirling prize
#Architecture #Stirlingprize #Socialhousing #TheRIBA #Culture #Artanddesign #London #Communities #Housing #Design #Awardsandprizes #Society #UKnews #TheGuardian #OliverWainwright
Two 1960s London housing estates saved from demolition after decade-long battle
By Peter Walker Senior political correspondent
Change of council leadership hands reprieve to residents of architecturally celebrated developments in Lambeth
#Socialhousing #London #Housing #Architecture #Communities #UKnews #England #Society #TheGuardian #PeterWalkerSeniorpoliticalcorrespondent
Build-it-yourself housing project was a huge success in 1970s Lewisham | Letters
By Guardian Staff
John Banks on the driving force behind a pioneering self-build project in the London borough. Plus a letter from Jonathan Pearson
#Socialhousing #Communities #Housing #Society #Localgovernment #London #Politics #TheGuardian #GuardianStaff
Former Grenfell Tower housing boss leaves £150,000 council property role after backlash
By Jessica Murray Social affairs correspondent
Survivors had criticised ‘outrageous’ appointment of Laura Johnson, who oversaw cost-cutting measures before fire, to Barnet Group
#GrenfellTowerfire #Socialhousing #Housing #Communities #Society #UKnews #London #England #Localgovernment #Politics #TheGuardian #JessicaMurraySocialaffairscorrespondent
Former Grenfell Tower housing boss leaves £150,000 council property role after backlash https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/12/former-grenfell-tower-housing-boss-laura-johnson-leaves-council-property-role-after-backlash #GrenfellTowerFire #SocialHousing #Housing #Communities #Society #UkNews #London #England #LocalGovernment #Politics
Man left with 1,000 bedbug bites following repeated infestations
Man left with 1,000 bedbug bites following repeated infestations
Labour chair of housing committee calls for urgent funds for affordable homes in England
By Kiran Stacey Policy editor
Exclusive: Abena Oppong-Asare urges chancellor to unlock billions of pounds, as housing associations say they could build 41,000 homes in 10 years
#Housing #Socialhousing #JohnHealey #Budget #Politics #Society #Communities #UKnews #TheGuardian #KiranStaceyPolicyeditor
Free land for those who will build on it. Is this the radical solution to the UK's social housing problem? | Phineas Harper
By Phineas Harper
A bold south London initiative to give land to community groups rather than private developers could transform the system
#Socialhousing #Localgovernment #London #Housing #Communities #England #UKnews #TheGuardian #PhineasHarper
Free land for those who will build on it. Is this the radical solution to the UK's social housing problem? | Phineas Harper https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/08/free-land-build-lewisham-council-london-social-housing-problem #SocialHousing #LocalGovernment #London #Housing #Communities #England #UkNews
How an 87-year-old Spanish woman became the face of the fight for affordable housing – explainer
By Laure Boulinier, Ashifa Kassam and John Farrell
María del Carmen Abascal, 87, was evicted from her home, on a stretcher, after being given 30 minutes to gather her belongings.
#Spain #Housing #Rentingproperty #Socialhousing #Protest #Europe #TheGuardian #LaureBoulinier #AshifaKassam #JohnFarrell
The Guardian view on Grenfell prosecutions: at last, survivors have a date | Editorial
By Editorial
Prosecutors will decide who to charge within eight months. But ministers should also re-examine the law
#GrenfellTowerinquiry #GrenfellTowerfire #Metropolitanpolice #London #Localgovernment #CrownProsecutionService #Socialhousing #Constructionindustry #TheGuardian #Editorial
Thamesmead towers across South Mere
#photography #monochrome #architecture #SocialHousing #CouncilHouse #SystemBuilt #Thamesmead
Angela Rayner promises greater public control of housing in England
By Jessica Elgot
Conference speech to announce housing associations cannot reject homeless families without good reason as councils gain new powers
#Housing #Labourconference2026 #Socialhousing #Homelessness #AngelaRayner #Labour #Localgovernment #Politics #UKnews #Society #TheGuardian #JessicaElgot
#Winter is coming. Without storms, 165 to 195 beautiful humans die outside in America every day. I've run this #research over and over for the last couple of years. It was 126. It's rising dramatically. We're killing them by policy. #HousingIsAHumanRight #HousingFirst #SovereignWealth #SocialHousing
#Rationing #housing through #algorithmic tools like the VI-SPDAT forces unhoused people to prove extreme sickness and trauma to get a roof. When shelter is rationed by diagnostic score, we incentivize pathology instead of preventing harm. Reject algorithmic triage. #SocialHousing
#HousingFirst
SCURLAGE: Old Countryman pub to be bulldozed for 21 affordable homes
The bulldozers are lining up for the Countryman.
The boarded-up Scurlage pub, which shut in April 2019 as the Monksland Bar and Grill, would be flattened to make way for 21 affordable homes under plans now out for public consultation.
Developer Hale Group is working with housing association Codi, formerly Pobl, and every one of the homes would be affordable.
But the plans do not say they would be kept for local people.
Homes for the housing register, no mention of a local connection
The homes would go to people who meet the requirements of Swansea Council’s housing register, the developer’s planning statement says.
Nowhere do the planning documents restrict them to people from Scurlage or Gower.
The statement does argue the scheme meets the council’s policy for affordable homes “for local needs”, which says homes must go to people who meet the council’s “occupancy criteria”. It does not say what those criteria would be.
A legal agreement is expected to keep the homes affordable “in perpetuity”, it adds.
The plans are for four one-bedroom flats, 11 two-bedroom houses, three three-bedroom houses and three four-bedroom houses.
It is the second former Gower pub in a matter of weeks to be cleared for housing. Swansea Council’s planning committee voted unanimously on 8 September to let the Greyhound at Oldwalls, near Llanrhidian, make way for nine homes.
Four of those will be affordable. Llanrhidian Community Council had objected to them being offered as shared ownership instead of going to a housing association, but the developer’s agent told councillors that Beacon Cymru Group had now agreed to take them on.
Backing the scheme, committee member Cllr Peter May said it had long been a problem on Gower that people could not stay in the area from one generation to the next.
The Countryman scheme would be social rent throughout, with Codi as the partner.
A nightclub, a stage and 500 covers
For anyone who never made it through the doors, the Countryman was far bigger than it looked from the road.
It had around 500 covers, according to a viability report written for the developer: a 200-cover lounge bar with its own stage, a 90-cover restaurant and a 230-capacity nightclub with a DJ booth.
The former Monksland Bar and Grill, once the Countryman, seen from the west (Image: Spring Design Consultancy)Takings had been sliding for years. The report puts turnover at £327,117 in 2003, falling to around £165,000 a year by 2013, when the pub was “loss making”.
One viewing, not a single offer
Nobody wanted it. The pub was on the market from January 2020 until the middle of 2025, drawing around 16 enquiries, one viewing and no offers, the planning statement says.
It had already failed to sell twice, according to the viability report: at £595,000 in 2007 and at £395,000 in 2013.
It is now agreed to be sold to developers for £650,000.
Surveyor Kate Robertson of Fleurets, who wrote the report, calculates that anyone reopening it as a pub would lose about £34,000 a year.
“I am of the opinion that the property does not have a credible or economically sustainable future trading as a public house,” she says.
Since it shut, village drinkers have made do with the South Gower Sports Club bar, which opens Thursday to Saturday evenings and costs £10 a year to join, the statement notes.
The field across the road still waiting for its homes
Just 35 metres away, across the B4247, a field has been earmarked for local-needs affordable housing in Swansea’s local plan. No planning application for it has ever come forward, the statement says.
The developer argues its own scheme is the better bet: a brownfield site instead of farmland, and 21 affordable homes against the 13 required on the field.
Too crowded for Gower, the council said first time round
The first version squeezed in 27 homes. In June 2025, Swansea Council’s planners told the developer it was too dense for the Gower AONB and asked for more evidence that the pub could not survive, according to the statement.
The scheme was cut back and a play area added, and later council advice welcomed the “better placemaking”. Highways officers also asked for a pedestrian crossing on Monksland Road, which is now in the plans.
The two-storey homes would be finished in pastel render, with heat pumps instead of oil or gas boilers.
Got a view? You have until 22 October
Comments can be emailed to [email protected], or posted to Simply Planning Ltd, 302 Creative Quarter, 8a Morgan Arcade, Cardiff, CF10 1AF, by Thursday 22 October.
The full planning application then goes to Swansea Council, which would consult again before any decision.
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
GOWER: Eight years after last orders, the Greyhound faces the bulldozers
The Oldwalls pub, its nine homes and the row over what ‘affordable’ means.
Gower news from Swansea Bay News
The latest from across the peninsula.
Affordable housing
New affordable and social homes across Swansea Bay.
Eviction of 87-year-old puts Spain’s deepening housing crisis in the spotlight
By Ashifa Kassam in Madrid
Images of Maricarmen Abascal being forcibly removed from her home sparked protests and a reckoning over the country’s soaring real estate market
#Spain #Europe #Worldnews #Rentingproperty #Housing #Socialhousing #Protest #Society #TheGuardian #AshifaKassaminMadrid
#Mortality from #homelessness is predictable. A #home is the first part of #healthcare! 🔦🔦🔦
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#HousingFirst
#HousingJustice
#SovereignWealth
#SocialHousing
#DecommodifyHousing
#EndHomelessness
#RightToShelter
#Urbanism
#CitySky
#PublicBanking
The #Viennese housing model is praised worldwide, but without permanent funding, it’s the #Housing #Industrial #Complex dressed up for the night. Without real wealth behind it, cities just manage misery instead of ending it. #SHE changes that. #HousingIsAHumanRight #SovereignWealth #SocialHousing
#Rationing #housing through #algorithmic tools like the VI-SPDAT forces unhoused people to prove extreme sickness and trauma to get a roof. When shelter is rationed by diagnostic score, we incentivize pathology instead of preventing harm. Reject algorithmic triage. #SocialHousing
#HousingFirst
Labour’s last chance? The people shaping Andy Burnham’s grand plans for Britain
By Hettie O'Brien
The new prime minister has declared he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism. But is he really prepared to be that radical?
#AndyBurnham #Labour #Localgovernment #Thinktanks #KeirStarmer #Mayoralelections #Devolution #Localpolitics #Socialhousing #Politics #UKnews #Manchester #Society #Housing #TheGuardian #HettieOBrien
Adults over 50 now make up nearly 50% of single unhoused Americans, up from 11% in 1990. They account for over 61% of all street deaths. The people dying on our sidewalks are retired workers and seniors on fixed incomes priced out of their homes.
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#SocialHousing
#HousingFirst
@bgreen63.bsky.social, #MissKitty slept on sidewalks cuz they stayed warmer longer. Ate out of the dumpster. Walking miles a day looking for a job. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 #HousingIsAHumanRight #HousingJustice #SocialHousing #Musicsky
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:alt6uxflcc2vkzjxggs23rpk/post/3mw57jsjs3k2m
Craig Morgan - Almost Home (20...
If 180 people died in a disaster on American soil today, the nation would halt in mourning. Yet 165 to 195 unhoused people die every 24 hours from cold, heat, and neglect. We have #normalized a #domestic #catastrophe that demands emergency action.
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#SocialHousing
#HousingJustice
If 180 people died in a disaster on American soil today, the nation would halt in mourning. Yet 165 to 195 unhoused people die every 24 hours from cold, heat, and neglect. We have #normalized a #domestic #catastrophe that demands emergency action.
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#SocialHousing
#HousingJustice
We treat 60,000 to 71,000 homeless deaths/year as inevitable municipal attrition. It is not. It is policy. 165 to 195 neighbors die daily on concrete because housing is treated as an unaffordable commodity rather than fundamental human necessity. #HousingIsAHumanRight #SocialHousing #HousingJustice
#MissKitty #homelessness top 10 #hashtags according to my #research.
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#SocialHousing
#HousingJustice
#HousingFirst
#Urbanism / #CitySky
#DecommodifyHousing
#TenantPower / #TenantUnion
#SovereignWealth / #PublicBanking
#EndHomelessness
#RightToShelter
126 died outside yesterday.
#MissKittyResearch #Bluesky #homelessness top 10 #hashtags according to my #research today.
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#SocialHousing
#HousingJustice
#HousingFirst
#Urbanism / #CitySky
#DecommodifyHousing
#TenantPower / #TenantUnion
#SovereignWealth / #PublicBanking
#EndHomelessness
#RightToShelter
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:pp66gvuh6w7tnshtvjxll72e/post/3mvtj3senjs2y
#MissKittyResearch #Bluesky #homelessness top 10 #hashtags according to my #research today.
#HousingIsAHumanRight
#SocialHousing
#HousingJustice
#HousingFirst
#Urbanism / #CitySky
#DecommodifyHousing
#TenantPower / #TenantUnion
#SovereignWealth / #PublicBanking
#EndHomelessness
#RightToShelter
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:pp66gvuh6w7tnshtvjxll72e/post/3mvtj5cxam22y
Director who oversaw Grenfell cost-cutting given senior council housing role https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/13/grenfell-fire-director-laura-johnson-barnet-council-housing #Housing #GrenfellTowerFire #GrenfellTowerInquiry #SocialHousing #London #UkNews #England #Communities #Society #LocalGovernment #Politics
Only slim chance government will meet target of building 1.5m homes, minister says https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/13/slim-chance-government-target-building-homes #Housing #AngelaRayner #Labour #AndyBurnham #SocialHousing #UkNews #Politics #Society #PlanningPolicy
Meanwhile, in Vienna, people are living in good quality social housing for around 400 euro a month.
Anthony and Alex’s one bedroom apartment costs roughly the same as the Brisbane sharehouse Anthony rented 20 years ago.
Imagine that.
A housing system designed to house people rather than extract every possible dollar from them.
Australia didn’t accidentally end up with unaffordable housing.
We made political choices that turned housing into an investment vehicle.
And people like Pauline Hanson want us arguing about who deserves a roof over their head instead of asking who is making a fortune from the crisis.
#auspol #housing #publichousing #socialhousing #vienna #housingcrisis
RE: https://aus.social/@mojo/117263225661381207
And here’s the thing about public housing that Pauline Hanson apparently doesn’t understand.
Vienna has built a housing system where around 43% of homes are social housing, available not just to the poorest, but to working and middle class people too.
Rents are around 30% lower than the private market.
Housing is treated as a basic need, not a commodity to enrich property investors.
So perhaps the real question isn’t why Albanese’s mum lived in public housing.
It’s why Australia decided housing should make the wealthy wealthier instead.
#auspol #housing #publichousing #socialhousing #vienna #paulinehanson
"What kind of a society is it, though, that is unable to provide its citizens with the most basic of needs, such as housing, and has deliberately chosen not to do so over the past half century? And what kind of a society scapegoats marginalised groups to camouflage that failure?"
Good from Kenan Malik in today's Observer.
#Housing #SocialHousing #Racism #UKPolitics
Scapegoating foreigners won’t fix the social housing cris...
https://archive.is/JUAGi
