Housing: What to say?

I/FAT made an appearance in The Guardian last week talking about housing along with Lynsey Hanley, Dickon Robinson, Kevin McCloud, Sarah Wigglesworth and Glenn Howells. It's one of those pieces where an interview is transcribed to look like something you've actually written so it reads a little jumpily but I think the main points are there apart, notably, from a call for a council house building programme. As this isn't a new idea but an old one disastrously abandoned, it probably doesn't engage people's interest that much. 

My main argument though would be for a combination of top-down, government funded, local council implemented council house building coupled with measures to encourage bottom-up, self and community build schemes. Both would have to deal with the cost and availability of land as a starting point. 

Surprisingly, the comments are worth reading too, many of which make the same points more thoroughly. In fact, one of the things that strikes me about the housing crisis is that the answers seem painfully obvious to anyone who has given the issue any thought and who isn't wearing neo-liberal blinkers. Unfortunately as all the current members of the government are, don't expect anything positive or useful to happen any time soon.