Open letter to political party leaders:

Dear Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Edward Davey:

All of us should have a safe and stable home. It’s the foundation for everything else in our lives.

But as you read this, hundreds of thousands of us are being failed. We’re being failed because our housing system is broken.

For decades now, successive governments have failed in their duty to take the critical steps needed to end homelessness, and to build enough social housing. This has to change.

This country doesn’t need to be a place where any of us spends a night on the streets fearing for our lives. Where the rising cost of living and soaring rents push people from their homes and onto friends’ sofas.

Where families are forced to live in cramped hostels and mouldy B&Bs that make them ill, or have no other option but to wash their children’s clothes in the bath because they don’t have access to basic facilities.

That’s why we’re joining together to demand that you make ending homelessness a society-wide mission for the next decade.

This means building good quality social homes and repurposing properties in our communities that have been empty for a long time. And we need to ensure that those of us forced to sleep on the street get the right support to leave the cold nights behind.

At the next election we have a decision to make. But so do you. This is your chance to build a lasting legacy by taking the decisive action needed to end homelessness for good.

We’ve set things right before. Women being able to vote. People being able to marry who they love. Things that once seemed impossible – until we, as a society, decided that things should be different.

A future free from homelessness is possible but we need you to deliver it. Are you up to the challenge?

Yours sincerely,

The undersigned