Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in September 2022.

The cost of living scandal could force 1.7 million households into homelessness this winter, according to the charity Crisis. In the UK, we can no longer rely on social housing to protect people from sleeping rough or sofa-surfing. If you were alive in 1979, you had a 40% chance of living in an affordable council home. Today, that figure is just under 8%.

What happened to all our council houses? Did Thatcher’s right to buy policy create the housing crisis we see today? And how would our lives be different if we could depend on warm, comfortable social homes?

Ayeisha is joined by Becki Winson, NEF senior organiser and Suzanne Muna, secretary of the Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC) (@RebeccaWinson and @Muna_Suz on Twitter)

-Join NEF's Homes for Us Campaign https://homesforus.org.uk/

-Find out more about SHAC and get involved https://shaction.org/

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Music by Broke for Free and Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone.

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The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org