ABSTRACT
In his book Homelessness: What Can be Done? Ron Bailey, the UK Green Party campaign manager, sets out a detailed plan of attack on Britain's housing crisis including a ready-made bill to go before parliament. Housing Benefit is available for tenants, assessed and paid for by local councils. Housebuilding only becomes more expensive when the Treasury requires that the full capital cost is shown in the public sector borrowing requirement (PSBR) in the year in which a public sector house is built. Thousands of families are suffering and being broken up, illness is being generated, building workers are on the dole, construction companies are in recession and investors are being cheated of dividends because of strange accountancy conventions within the Treasury. The mathematics of the situation indicates that in fact investment in housebuilding is ten times better value for money and that temporary accommodation is a waste of public expenditure.
