Our housing priorities for the 2026 local elections
Birmingham Citizens have a strong track record of campaigning for Housing Justice. Our community organising over the past decade has unpacked the worsening of the housing crisis in our city, as nearly 11,000 children are growing up in temporary accommodation whilst many households face an uphill struggle to meet expensive rents, get repairs sorted and heat their homes.
In this briefing we share:
- a timeline of our 10 years of campaigning
- how our member organisations have been taking action to directly support households
- looking ahead in 2026
- our specific asks of politicians in the upcoming local council elections in May 2026
10 years of campaigning on housing justice
Our campaigning on Housing Justice started in the summer of 2015, with parent leaders of primary schools living within the St George’s estate in Newtown. Through neighbourhood organising, we were able to secure a regular housing surgery then at their school attended by a council officer committed to following up on repairs not completed by the council’s contractor.
This led us to develop our first understanding of how families were struggling to navigate help and support as the council closed neighbourhood offices and moved online.
On International Women’s Day in March 2018, with over 500 families & civil society leaders in the Birmingham Town Hall, we called for a set of Citizens Guarantees to tackle Child Poverty as a legacy of the Commonwealth Games.
This included building community land trust homes on or near the athletes village.
In 2019, at our Spring Delegates Assembly, our member organisations launched a listening campaign in preparation for the 2020 Mayoral elections. During the course of the year, we had over 1,000 face to face conversations across our communities, where we identified ‘poor housing’ as a top issue affecting families.
Later in December of that year, we conducted a Christmas public action to highlight the housing crisis in our city with a rising number of homeless families in emergency & temporary accommodation.
In 2020, with the mayoral elections postponed because of the pandemic, we teamed up with Birmingham City Council’s Public Health team to respond to the disproportionate number of people in our communities dying from Covid. The virus was able to spread more easily, as many of our families lived in poor housing whether in private or social rented sector. We raised alarm about the impact of the virus to the rising numbers of families in Bed & Breakfasts Hotels (B&Bs) and temporary accommodation.
We were pleased in February 2020; the Combined Authority became the first of any region to define ‘affordable housing’ as based on paying no more than 35% of salary on housing costs.
Ahead of the then Mayoral elections in 2021, we held an online Mayoral Assembly with Andy Street & Liam Byrne attended by over 300 people -where we pinned our asks from the need to build community land trust or affordable homes to building social rent family homes.
At this event Andy Street shared the achievements of building affordable homes for sale and committed to securing a Housing Deal with Government to build homes for social rent. Liam Byrne confirmed Birmingham City Council plans to spend £346 million on building 2708 homes by 2029 (no breakdown on how many will be for social rent), and if elected will double the numbers of homes built for social rent every year in the region. See their pledges in full here.
A year later, in 2022, at our Commonwealth Games Legacy Assembly attended by over 350 people joined by the Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, we renewed our calls for the building of social rent family homes as a legacy of the Games and pushed for community advice surgeries to support families with housing advice as well as a charter on how people can be expected to be treated by the council when they seek help.
In January 2023, Birmingham City Council published its Customer Services Charter on how people can expect to be treated; and soon after launched a £676k grant to fund community advice surgeries in the city. Later in 2024, the council confirmed 200 of the new homes on the athlete's village in Perry Barr will be retained for social housing.
We welcomed all three responses to our asks in 2022.
In January 2024, using exact webpage links from Birmingham City Council’s website, our Housing Action Team of faith, education, voluntary org and social enterprise leaders produced a 7-page dossier highlighting some key differences between what was mentioned online to what happens when our families seek help from it.
We welcomed the council’s response to build a collaborative relationship on improving services as part of a new strategy on preventing homelessness, by identifying a senior officer as a single-point of contact at Birmingham City Council for us.
Since then a number of improvements to the information of the website have been completed.
In April 2024, at our last Accountability Assembly attended by over 600 people, the now Mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker made a public pledge to build 2,000 homes for social rent a year in the region. This was the first time ever the building of social housing appeared on the combined authority's website as a priority.
Find out more here on the stories and pledges made at this event.
After a fresh listening campaign, last year, in 2025, we formed a strong action team of local leaders from schools, places of worship, community centres and universities to explore three things:
- We wanted to see minimum standards for families put in B&Bs & temporary accommodation.
- We wanted to know how many & where are affordable/social rent homes are being planned/built in the city - and how can our families access them?
- We wanted to know the timetable for fixing & retrofitting homes in local communities.
How we are taking action to directly support households
Whilst we consistently put the building of social rent homes on the public agenda at every turn, we also worked closely in mutual support across our member institutions to directly assist an ever increasing number of vulnerable households turning to their child’s school, local place of worship, a voluntary organisation in their neighbourhood or a community business for help.
Staff & volunteers from member organisations take part in multiple training workshops put on by our chapter Housing Action Team. These workshops cover topics ranging from understanding basic housing rights, supporting households in fuel poverty & how to effectively navigate statutory agencies. In addition to ensuring appropriate training for frontline personnel in communities, the workshops strengthen peer support between schools, voluntary organisations and places of worship.
We've supported our member schools & community organisations to host housing Q&As in coffee mornings for local families (Anglesey, Ark Victoria & Ark Tindal) tackling myths about applying for a council home, giving clear info on basic rights and signposting to the right places for local advice & advocacy.
We've supported the setting up of new as well as strengthening existing community advice surgeries across our member organisations - offering 1:1 appointments to households to secure the right advice and support. With our colleagues at Aston University, we made the case for investment in community advice surgeries to meet to prevent more households entering homelessness.
Looking ahead in 2026
Along with the above local organising we joined forces with Citizens UK chapters from other cities to engage with MPs on the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Temporary Accommodation and Government Ministers to campaign nationally.
And together with other housing campaigners we've got 3 wins to celebrate.
- In October 2025, the government announced an £84 million cash boost to help prevent homelessness and support families this winter, including a £11 million commitment to help families with children living in temporary accommodation (TA) to access basic facilities. This has resulted in Birmingham City Council receiving £1.4M of which £300,000 was allocated to support families in Temporary Accommodation in the next couple of months. Just before Christmas, the Government launched its new Homelessness Strategy which clearly stated eliminating the use of B&Bs for families as a top priority.
- In November 2025, the government announced local authorities will get a share of £950 million of funding from April 2026 primarily aimed at ending the use of B&B and poor-quality temporary accommodation for families who find themselves homeless.
- And in January 2026, the Government announced 'The Warm Homes Plan' which includes £5bn for upgrades & fixing homes not just retrofitting them with people on low income covered.
So, what does this mean for us in Birmingham?
In January, we secured a meeting with the Cabinet member for Housing and the Director for Housing Support at Birmingham City Council. We also got a commitment to meet senior officers at the council on it’s programme for retrofit and upgrades of homes.
We asked them for minimum standards for all families in temporary accommodation giving them access to basic necessities. We were told there is a commitment in the council's own temporary accommodation strategy to come up with a charter for this. The strategy says there will be a charter by June 2023 - almost 3 years on, there still isn't one.
We asked for the council to work with us to launch the next Net Zero Neighbourhood in parts of the city where we have roots in the local community. The Mayor of the West Midlands has £167M to spend on retrofitting and upgrading homes in the region through Net Zero Neighbourhood areas backed by the ‘Warms Homes Plan’ announced by government.
We submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and have received a wealth of data on the council's plans for building homes in the city. We are still going through it to map what it looks like where our member organisations are rooted in local communities.
Our asks to all seeking election to Birmingham City Council
The Council to publish a charter in 2026 for minimum standards in temporary accommodation. This should include access to 5 basic necessities of 1) cooking facilities, 2) laundry access, 3) Wi-Fi, 4) affordable secure storage and 5) clear information on rights.
The Council to work with us to launch the next Net Zero Neighbourhood in Birmingham. Our youth leaders in a programme with Aston Villa Foundation are calling for that to happen in the B19 wards of the city.
If you would like to find out more about our housing campaigning and the above asks, please email saidul.haque@citizensuk.org