Benedict Gardner

Yuliana Zaichenko, a Ukrainian refugee living in London social housing, says a Conservative proposal to restrict social housing access for most foreign nationals would be devastating and would use refugees as scapegoats for the housing crisis. The plan would require many existing non-British, non-Irish and non-EU residents to leave their homes and limit future eligibility, with the Conservatives claiming it could release 228,144 properties for British families. Shelter, Crisis and Labour argue that the policy would cause homelessness, increase temporary-accommodation costs and have little effect on waiting lists, which contain 1.34 million households in England. They say building substantially more social housing, rather than removing existing tenants, is needed to address the shortage.