The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has this week launched a major new Church of England inquiry into England’s housing crisis.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Housing, Church and Community will see academics, housing experts and theologians meet over an 18 month period and examine how the church can build on its own work in the housing sector as well contribute to national policy on housing.
The commission will be lead by Charlie Arbuthnot, an expert in the financing of social housing, and the bishop of Kensington, Graham Tomlin, who has been involved in supporting residents in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Other members include Rev Lynne Cullens, from the National Estate Churches Network, Sir Robert Devereux, former permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, Marvin Rees, mayor of Bristol, and Professor Christine Whitehead, emeritus professor of housing economics at the London School of Economics.
Archbishop Welby said the church had something “unique to contribute” to finding solutions to Britain’s housing crisis, “one of the major challenges facing this country”.
“Up and down the country we are living out our faith in Jesus Christ by loving and serving those around us,” he said. “Through food banks, night shelters and many other projects, the church seeks to bind communities together with bonds of friendship, compassion and mutual support. This teaches us that any way forward must involve building communities, not just houses.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Housing, Church and Community will consider what else we could and should be doing, as a church and as a nation. In doing so, I hope it might help reclaim the very purpose of housing – as the basis for community, and a foundation for human flourishing.”
Bishop of Kensington, Graham Tomlin, said it was the commission’s “hope…that by exploring a Christian vision of housing, home and community we can make a contribution to solving some of these long-standing issues that our society has struggled to resolve over many years.”
