Progress

The Homes for Britain campaign has gone from strength to strength since it was launched a few years ago. Leading organisations from every corner of the housing world have backed it and we’ve taken our message to politicians from all political parties.

We took our campaign beyond party conferences to politicians in Westminster and their constituencies. They needed to hear from us, as voters, that the time has come to end the crisis once and for all.

Find out how the campaign is progressing.

Milestone 1 – Party conferences (September 2014)

More than 80 events run by over 50 organisations took place under the Homes for Britain banner at the three main political party conferences. That is every housing event run by a housing organisation. Every minister, shadow minister or spokesperson with responsibility for housing spoke at a Homes for Britain event.

Milestone 2 – #HomesforBritain day of action (November 2014)

The whole housing sector got actively involved in the day of action on 25 November – nearly 1,000 organisations and individuals participated and tweets with #homesforbritain appeared in timelines nearly 3 million times. Our Thunderclap was supported by 429 people (a social reach of 689,000) and more than 10,000 loops of our Homes for Britain Vines were played on the day.

Milestone 3 – Ho Ho Homes for Britain (December 2014)

More than 1,000 messages were sent to 550 candidates by our supporters. The hashtag #homesforbritain was used nearly 1,500 times on in December and our Facebook advert reached more than 18,000 users.

Milestone 4 – Amplifying the message (January – March)

In this phase of the campaign, we took the message out to the wider public. The Times published a joint letter from the Homes for Britain coalition. We published 50 blogs in 50 days to show different perspectives on the housing crisis. The advertising campaign launched with a takeover of Westminster tube station sponsored by G15 housing associations. Housing associations across the country organised events and Betsy the Bus began her journey from Lands End to London to highlight the campaign. Relay to the Rally started with housing associations staff running, walking and cycling down the country.

Milestone 5 – Homes for Britain rally (17 March)

More than 2,300 people from nearly 300 organisations gathered in Methodist Central Hall to show their support for the campaign.The five main national parties sent speakers of cabinet level or above to the rally and, crucially, all five backed our campaign ask to end the housing crisis within a generation. Three of the five – the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens – also committed to produce a long term plan to achieve this ask within a year of taking office and Labour contended that they have one already, in the shape of the Lyons Review.

The event gained more than 200 pieces of media coverage including a package on the BBC 6 O’Clock News.On social media, more than 5,000 people sent nearly 26,000 #homesforbritain tweets on the day, reaching over 5.3 million people, while our promoted ads on and Facebook have driven hundreds of people to post their housing stories and write to their political candidates.On the political front, 81 MPs and PPCs have now declared their public support for the campaign, 32 of whom did so in tweets supporting the rally.