300,000 empty homes to be brought back into use

Museum of Homelessness at Housing Demo, summer 2026

Angela Rayner has announced reforms to Empty Dwelling Management Orders that could see enough homes made available to ease the soaring homelessness crisis which now sees 177,000 children living in temporary accommodation including hotels, B&Bs and office block conversions.

We have long campaigned for this to alleviate the immediate crisis whilst council homes are built. When we wrote to the Prime Minister and Ministers over the summer, use of long term empty homes was Step 2 in our plan to end homelessness.

We are grateful to Lord Bird for his work in the House of Lords, championing this solution to the structural causes of the homelessness crisis.

We are pleased to see that Empty Dwelling Management Orders are to be made simpler and quicker to use.

All local authorities should now commit to a 5 year plan to assess and bring into use the empty homes in their borough, with a focus on council and social housing voids first.

Central government should ensure the resources are available for renovation and management of the homes.

We hope that implementation of these policies can make some solid steps towards alleviating the homelessness crisis for thousands of households.