Keir Starmer has hardly had a chance to make 10 Downing Street his home. But the clock is already ticking on whether his government can become the first in generations to reckon with the housing crisis.
Look up the word ‘crisis’ in the dictionary and you’ll see ‘a time of intense difficulty or danger’ or ‘a time when a difficult or important decision must be made’. Successive governments have failed to grasp the urgency or given housing the focus – or cash – it needs to cope with a growing population. We’re all paying the price. Homeownership continues to be out of reach for many.
This Big Issue housing supplement is not a warts-and-all guide to fixing the housing crisis. We’d need several books for that. Instead, it is a series of helpful suggestions, big ideas and alternative ways to get us out of this mess. But it’s also a symbol of hope – perhaps the most precious and rarest commodity in housing right now – packed with examples of how we can do better and change the narrative on a crisis that has dogged us for decades.
What else is in this week’s Big Issue?
Simeon McAnoy was killed by nitazenes. Could his life have been saved?
When Jackie McAnoy found out what had killed her son, Simeon, she’d never heard of nitazenes. News of 33-year-old Simeon’s death came in a Facebook post, and as she pieced together what had happened, nobody explained to her exactly what this new drug was. “I feel like he’s been treated like nobody,” says Jackie. Big Issue has been investigating the human toll of nitazenes – powerful synthetic opioids which have been linked to 284 deaths across the country
Blitz is the war film that says everything about British national identity as lived today
Blitz reclaims a familiar story through fresh eyes and by shattering cliches. Director Sir Steve McQueen and star Saoirse Ronan tell Big Issue how they did it.
Pauline Black’s Letter to My Younger Self
Pauline Black studied biochemistry and worked for the NHS, but after touring with The Specials it was time to quit the day job.