The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A home is not just a physical structure of bricks and mortar; it is a whole environment in which someone lives and probably spends most of their time, whether asleep or awake. It is a security, a setting, and a place where the family is based, and it affects someone’s wellbeing.
We must take a more humane approach to housing, and York, as a human rights city, is determined to see that. Housing is a major issue in the city; we have a massive supply problem. Every time the Government say they are building more homes, I say, “But not in York”. Our council has completely failed on that front, and it now looks like the local plan, which has been prevaricated over, is in real danger of falling because sites are pulling away. We have overcrowding because we do not have the housing supply we need, which means we have families who have been living on sofas for months on end. I received a letter just this last week about a gentleman who is not well and has been sleeping on the sofa for three months. The council has not intervened in that kind of case. It is right that we get a local plan to build the housing the city needs to address future accommodation needs—not all those luxury apartments we see going up everywhere.
My final point concerns my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for ageing and older people, and the provision we are making for our older people, ensuring that we have the right environments for them to live in. Increasingly, older people live in the private rental sector, which provides insecurity in later life. Others in the sector also face that insecurity, but it is compounded in the later stages of life. It is really important to build secure housing for older people.
We know that isolation and loneliness have a massive impact on wellbeing, but it is also about the place and the environment in which people live. I urge the Minister to look at some of the impressive projects in the Netherlands, building villages that are safe environments for older people. In Hogeweyk, a dementia village,
people have their independence, which keeps them on their feet, which then keeps them healthy, and they can move safely around a village environment while at the same time having a few people keeping an eye on them. Three or four people, at various stages of dementia, live in each house. There is a shop and a hairdressers on the complex, and other places that people can go, but it is a closed environment that keeps people safe. There are some good models out there of how we can build proper homes for life and ensure that people do not have the stress—we all know that moving home is stressful—of having to move at a fragile point in their life.
There is so much more we can do with this agenda if a real aspiration is there to change how we look at the complex dual issue of health and housing. Should Labour come into power in York in May, our plans are to build transformation, ensuring both that we have private rental sector licensing to drive up standards, and that we build the homes that people need in a healthy environment, place making as we go, so that everyone can enjoy the place where they live.
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