There are more than 82,000 households trapped in temporary accommodation in England and over 130,000 children in the Yorkshire region growing up homeless or badly housed
There are 247,499 households currently on waiting lists – thousands more who simply cannot afford to buy or even rent at today's prices.
This is a national disgrace.
There are many thousands more 'hidden homeless' who 'sofa surf' or have no fixed abode – still technically 'homeless' but not recorded on Government statistics.
Indeed the last Government Rough Sleeping Count, held between January 2008 and May 2009, only put the total number of people sleeping rough on the streets of the whole of Calderdale as as being one!
The whole housing sector is littered with antiquated and confusing legislation more suited to the early years of the last century than the dawn of the 21st.
The legal definition of overcrowding is very strict and hasn't been updated for 74 years.
Sadly this means there may be little you can do about cramped conditions if they don't fall within this outdated legal definition.
Overcrowding is unfortunately still impacting negatively on many people in the Calderdale, Kirklees and Yorkshire area.
Readers may be interested to know that 8.1 million homes in the UK fail to meet the decent homes standard.
Over half a million households live in overcrowded accommodation. Around two thirds of those are families with children. The impact of overcrowding, particularly on the health, education and well-being of children can be devastating. The current definition of statutory overcrowding was introduced in 1935. It ignores babies under 12 months and includes kitchens and living rooms as rooms to sleep in.
In December 2007 the Government published an overcrowding 'action plan' which made a commitment to update the standards. A new Bedroom Standard will be introduced in some pilot areas.
As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, isn't it about time we in Britain adopted a more humane and progressive attitude to homelessness?
The country which gave birth to the National Health Service and the Welfare State should be leading – not led – in the area of social need housing.
Recent figures show that repossessions have risen 12 per cent to 11,300 in the third quarter of the year from July to September.
Those who lived in them will have to be found accommodation somewhere else – it is a slow burning homeless crisis in the making.
Even before the recession, there were four million children in the UK below the poverty line. Now, many families are falling deeper and deeper into poverty, as unemployment rises and working hours are reduced.
Government must act now to ensure that we don't see increasing numbers of children growing up without the basic minimum that they need.
How can it be right in a modern, mature, democracy in the fourth richest country in the world, that those responsible for passing legislation on housing in Parliament have second homes and mortgages paid for by the taxpayer while our homeless – each and every single one someone's brother, sister, mother, father or friend – have no roof at all or else are condemned to live in sub-standard housing with all the associated mental, physical health and social conditions impacting negatively on yet another generation?
We're still paying the social and economic price of past recessions.
Let's make sure we don't end up neglecting the old,the vulnerable and the homeless as a result of the recession that we're struggling through now.
On November 18, 2008, Homelessness Minister Iain Wright, speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said at the Crisis Annual Conference that:
"Our goal is to end rough sleeping once and for all, and I want us to do everything we can to ensure that when the world comes to London for the Olympics in 2012, there will be nobody sleeping rough on the streets."
Shelter,Crisis, Housing Justice and other housing campaigners are now urging the Government not to delay any further in introducing the Bedroom Standard across the whole country as soon as possible.
I hope Calderdale Council will be able to add their active support to this national aspiration as an important step towards ensuring that fewer of our local families suffer in overcrowded housing.
Decent housing for all is a worthy goal… an ideal opportunity for the council to take some of the pressure off those in most need during the credit crunch.
Is not the run up to Christmas not an opportune moment to remind ourselves of the biblical tale of Jesus having been born a "squatter" in the straw of a Bethlehem barn?
Since even two thousand years ago in Galilee there was, as there still is today, an acute housing shortage.
ANDREW WASTLING