The Economic Crisis

I have always thought the cultural phenomenon of house buying was at the heart of this credit crisis and so I listened with particular interest to Alison Gelder, Chief Executive of Housing Justice, who was one of the key speakers at yesterday's CTBI Conference at Methodist Church House in London.

This year 75,000 mortgage repossessions are expected in Britain. We need more housing to be built, but because of the downturn, the government's housing target will not be met. So there needs to be other solutions.

I was happy to hear that one of the possibilities Alison suggested was the removal of the stigma of home renting as a "looser's option". Why do the British think this? On the continent, renting is the norm. Considering how costly mortgage holding is, why do so many want to walk around proudly declaring themselves as "mortgage slaves"?

I think a change in our attitude towards the way we live is also the key towards re-examining our relationships with each other, which was a point raised by Paula Clifford, Head of Theology at Christian Aid who also spoke at yesterday's conference.

At the beginning of the second millenium, individualists are keen to define quality of life as the means to live on one's own - and occupy the maximum amount of space while doing so. If we can look at sharing our living space and redefine quality of life while doing so, we may start to get somewhere.