There are currently more than a million families stuck on local authority waiting lists for social housing.
Yet the number of empty properties in the country continues to rise every year.
Statistics published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) put the number of empty homes in England in October 2019 at 648,114.
This represents a 2.2% increase on the previous year’s total.
Of the 648,114, 225,845 were classed as long-term empty properties (empty for longer than six months).
Given the scale of the housing challenge, it makes little sense to leave thousands of homes empty and unused.
Local authorities have a range of powers and incentives at their disposal to bring empty homes back into use. These include Empty Dwelling Management Orders, Council Tax premiums, enforced sales, compulsory purchase, and measures to secure the improvement of empty properties.
There are also a range of other initiatives and incentives that can help reduce the number of empty properties, including the sale of empty Government-owned properties and planning measures.
As well as cutting down the number of already-scarce available housing, homes left empty for a long time, whatever the reason, always had a negative impact on the local community, placing a burden on local services and attracting crime and vandalism.
Making use of the housing stock we already have is of crucial importance to end the housing crisis. A failure to build social housing, particularly social rent homes, has seen mounting queues as well as up to 320,000 people placed in temporary accommodation or even left homeless.