Empty homes are ‘a sign of what is wrong with the housing crisis’, campaigners say. Here’s how many homes are being left empty in the UK, reports the Big Issue.

The UK has been gripped by a housing crisis for decades and empty homes mean that properties are lying vacant while record numbers of people are experiencing homelessness. Campaign group Action on Empty Homes recently revealed that more than one million homes are being left empty in England. The group’s analysis of government council tax data found 754,264 empty homes – with more than 300,000 empty over the long-term, and 268,153 second homes in the council taxbase. The number of homes left empty has been on the rise, the campaigners said. England’s empties are 13% higher than during the Covid pandemic and up 14% year on year. Meanwhile, London has seen numbers rise by almost a quarter in the last year and up 138% in the last decade.

“We are told that we can build our way out of a housing and homelessness crisis but it seems that our housing market is flooded with empty homes,” said Chris Bailey, director of policy and campaigns at Action on Empty Homes. The group released the figures to mark National Empty Homes Week in March. “We believe we are building the wrong housing to solve this crisis. But with the right incentives and support surely some of these empties could be used to make a difference? “Action on Empty Homes see empty homes both as a sign of what is wrong and as an opportunity to start turning our housing crisis around.”

Big Issue recently backed calls for a government empty homes strategy in England, with John Bird calling it “bold, long-term prevention thinking”. The number of vacant homes in England has risen by 50% in the decade since the last the last government-funded programme ended, Bailey said. He called for capital gains tax relief to allow empty homes to be sold into social housing stock. “At present we spend billions subsidising temporary accommodation trapping families in substandard accommodation while bankrupting councils when we could be investing in creating lifetime social homes by retrofitting and repairing wasted empty homes, while we await more significant investment in new social homes – which should be our highest priority,” said Bailey. “In 2026, our focus is on the opportunity which empty homes represent, to offer hope for the future. But that hope will be in vain while government continue to tie the council’s hands with weak powers and a focus on building homes that we won’t see for years, without getting the homes we already have occupied and upgraded.”

How many empty homes are there in Wales?

More than 22,000 homes are empty for more than six months in Wales at a time when one in every 14 households in Wales is currently waiting for a social home. The Bevan Foundation has suggested a shortage of social housing in the country could be solved by using existing homes and buildings. In Wales, there are currently 6,285 people living in temporary accommodation while they wait to be housed, including 2,500 children. To help tackle this, the Welsh government has been working towards the delivery of 20,000 new social homes during the current Senedd term. But with housebuilding levels slumping, attentions should turn to existing properties instead, the think tank said.

There were 22,528 homes in Wales empty for six months or more in 2025-26 and up to 4,500 could be suitable for purchase as social homes, according to Bevan Foundation analysis. A further 60,000 homes sold off under the Right to Buy scheme, which was abolished in Wales in 2019, could be purchased by social landlords. There are also opportunities to buy homes from second homeowners as well as holiday lets and private landlords looking to sell following greater regulations.

Wendy Dearden, senior policy and research officer at the Bevan Foundation, said: “It cannot be right that, tonight, thousands of families across Wales will go to bed in cramped, unsuitable rooms in B&Bs while perfectly good houses sit empty across the country. As homelessness and waiting lists for housing continue to grow, it’s clear that Wales’s housing crisis can’t be fixed by building alone. We need to look at how we can use the stock we already have – whether that’s by refurbishing empty homes and buildings or purchasing ex-council houses and privately-rented homes – to provide social homes at the scale that’s needed.” Dearden added that regulations would need to change to scale up efforts and more funding would be needed. Changes included amending land transaction tax to exempt social landlords and community groups repurposing homes and the Welsh working with the Westminster to review VAT rules. “In our research, we found great examples of local practice, and a real enthusiasm to bring existing properties into use,” she said.

How many empty homes are there in Scotland?

In Scotland, 44,453 privately owned homes have sat empty for more than six months as of September 2025. Of those, 32,337 have lay vacant for over 12 months. That was an increase of 915 homes over the previous year, according to figures published by the Scottish government. The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP) has called for continued investment and strategic working to realise the potential of the thousands of properties lying empty across the country.

The group, which formed in 2010, has brought 13,000 homes back into use. But, like in Wales and England, house-building levels remain low. The Scottish government has previously declared a housing emergency and pledged to build 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. Five years into the programme, 32,479 homes have been built. With 36,000 more by 2030 promised in the most recent comprehensive spending review, Shelter Scotland estimated 41,521 would have be built in the last two years to hit the milestone. That’s where turning to vacant properties could help.

Tahmina Nizam, Scottish Empty Homes Partnership national manager, said: “In councils across the country, dedicated empty homes officers are working hard to bring empty homes back into use. The figures are a reminder of just how important that work is. No home was built to sit empty, and we simply can’t afford to let these vital assets go to waste. Bringing empty properties back into use is a cost-effective way to ease housing pressures; in many cases it will be the simplest, quickest, way to expand local affordable and social housing stock.”

What are the solutions to empty homes?

Bringing homes left empty back into use is often the responsibility of local authorities. Councils in England can charge higher rates of council tax for properties left unfurnished and unoccupied to encourage owners to bring them back into use. That means council tax can double after a home is left empty for one year, rising to 200% for a home unoccupied for five years and 300% for more than a decade. The Welsh government’s national empty homes grant scheme offers homeowners up to £25,000 to renovate properties, making them energy efficient and suitable to live in. There is a £2 million loan fund in Scotland for acquiring and refurbishing empty homes.

But Propertymark research, which quizzed 226 councils in England, Scotland and Wales through freedom of information requests, found that only 38% of councils have an empty homes strategy in place and just 41% have at least one dedicated empty homes officer. Timothy Douglas, head of policy and campaigns at property agents body Propertymark, said: “Long-term empty properties are a visible reminder of a system that is not working as effectively as it should. At a time when housing demand continues to outstrip supply, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes unused is neither economically nor socially sustainable. Our research shows that while governments across the UK have introduced a range of measures, too many local authorities lack the dedicated resources, funding and strategic framework needed to deliver meaningful change. Financial penalties alone will not solve the problem. What works is sustained local engagement, professional advice, and properly funded empty homes teams that can support owners through the process of bringing properties back into use.”

Social Bite has opened its second homeless village in Scotland and the charity believes it could be a blueprint to helping councils address rising homelessness, reports the Big Issue.

Residents have moved into a new homeless village that organisers believe could offer councils an affordable way to address rising homelessness.

Social Bite’s new £3 million Harriet Gardens village of sustainable modular homes opens its doors on Thursday (9 April) at the former Westfield Saw Mills site in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, following a three-year wait. It’s the second village the Scottish social enterprise has opened following a settlement in Granton, near Edinburgh, back in 2018. The new supported living community arrives at a time when homelessness has increased across Scotland with local authorities and the Scottish government declaring housing emergencies in recent times.

Social Bite co-founder Josh Littlejohn told Big Issue that the new village demonstrates what could be a “brilliant solution” to a homelessness crisis that has seen a record-high 18,092 households trapped in temporary accommodation across Scotland. “We feel we’ve got a fantastic homelessness accommodation model here now that would work in towns and cities all over the country basically,” Littlejohn told Big Issue. “We’re excited to start having those conversations and trying to work proactively with local councils to help bring this to other places. If you think about all of the councils declaring housing emergencies all over Britain, this is just a brilliant, brilliant solution to that. It’s not going to solve the whole thing but it’s going to make a massive difference to the people that are here.”

The first Social Bite village has helped more than 100 people experiencing homelessness to live independently in shared modular homes. The new village opened its doors on Thursday (9 April) two years after it was granted approval. Operated by South Lanarkshire Council with support provided by The Salvation Army, people who are currently homeless will live in 15 single-unit homes. The modular Nest Houses, manufactured by Ecosystems Technologies, have been improved following “eight years of feedback”, Littlejohn said. Residents also have access to an outdoor gym and a central community hub with shared spaces for cooking, group activities, therapeutic support and social connection. They are expected to spend between six and 12 months in the village with intensive wraparound support before moving on to the mainstream housing market.

The council’s homelessness lead toured Social Bite’s original Edinburgh village, according to Littlejohn, and decided to decommission the Lindsay House hostel in East Kilbride, which closed last year. “They felt it was outdated and not really fit for purpose and they were just getting really poor outcomes from it,” said Littlejohn. “I think they thought that the village could be a state of the art, purpose-built, alternative supported accommodation facility. It’s been quite a long process, but a rewarding one to see it come to fruition.” Littlejohn said the construction offers a more affordable alternative to temporary accommodation at around £82,000 per housing unit without compromising on quality. He added: “We were getting great outcomes where we saw people were really thriving and the people that were staying there were saying: ‘Wow, this is so much better than B&B’s or hostels or obviously rough sleeping.’ It was proving a really superior alternative so we felt the model had a lot of legs for other towns or cities to take it on.”

A total of 2,467 people declared as homeless in South Lanarkshire between 2024-25. Sharon Egan, South Lanarkshire Council’s head of housing services, said the project offered the chance for the local authority to change how it addresses homelessness. “This development began with an ambition, supported by our elected members and senior leadership team, to explore new and innovative approaches to homelessness, particularly for people with complex needs.” said Egan. “From the outset, Social Bite were a key partner in helping us turn that ambition into a reality, and I want to recognise the commitment, creativity and persistence they have shown throughout the journey and in particular thank Social Bite for the significant investment toward responding to and resolving homelessness in South Lanarkshire. We are very proud of what has been achieved with this project and look forward to seeing the impact it will have for many years to come.”

As for Social Bite, the ambition doesn’t stop at South Lanarkshire. The social enterprise, which has counted Leonardo Di Caprio and George Clooney among its celebrity supporters in the past, is hoping other councils will come forward to adopt the homeless village model. Social Bite has offered to make a financial contribution to cover construction and subsidise costs to local authorities. “We’d had the original village project in Edinburgh since 2018 and we’ve been kind of doing our own thing there and it’s been really successful,” said Littlejohn. “But other local authorities or local and national governments haven’t taken a great deal of interest in it over the last eight years. Now it seems like there’s quite significant interest from lots of local authorities. South Lanarkshire was the first one that took a bit of interest. We’re keen to really try and push the accelerator now.”

A man who was once homeless is now running a successful pizzeria thanks to a chef at a soup kitchen who taught him the art of making pizza, reports the BBC.

Mark Clarey, of Blackpool, said his life had “spiralled” and “he lost everything” in 2019, including his home and his events company, after the deaths of his mother, his step-father and his auntie within months of each other. But despite losing his home and staying in a friend’s shed, Clarey wanted to help when he heard about a charity asking for clothes donations for homeless people. Clarey spent time collecting clothes for Amazing Graze and his “good deed came back tenfold” when the founder offered to put him up in a hotel, something he described as a “turning point” that eventually led to him setting up Bedrock Pizza.

The 62-year-old said after his auntie and mum had died, his step-father’s death was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. He said he had “lost the plot” and took his eyes off his events business. It led to Clarey losing his home, though he still had a van. In November 2018, he used it to collect clothes and bedding for Amazing Graze, a community cafe that supports homeless people. When he handed the donations over to its founder Mark Butcher in a car park in Blackpool, the chance meeting was what Clarey described as a “massive turning point”.

Butcher, who was then a trustee at the charity and is still a volunteer, was impressed that Clarey was helping others when he was also homeless. He offered to pay for a hotel out of his own pocket to keep Clarey off the streets.

“I was very, very fortunate,” Clarey said. It was the start of a great friendship and Clarey said Butcher had given him mental stability and moral support that enabled him to bounce back. It also happened to be at a time when Amazing Graze was forced to find new premises and moved to Bolton Street in South Shore, Blackpool.

Clarey, who was an electrician and plumber and could tile, volunteered to help do it up, as a thank you for Butcher paying for his accommodation. “It was a wreck,” he said. “It didn’t even have modern plug sockets.” Clarey said they had started building a temporary kitchen along with other volunteers on a Monday and the soup kitchen was serving food by the Friday. “It gave me something to occupy my mind and gave me meaning and purpose,” he said.

In 2020, he helped transform part of the premises into Pizza Grazia restaurant to boost Amazing Graze funds. This resulted in one of the group’s volunteers, who was a trained chef, teaching Clarey how to make pizzas and it eventually inspired him to set up a business making wood fired pizzas from a van. “I had seen an old retro caravan at a festival in 2015. The hatch opened and there was a pizza oven inside,” he said. “I thought then it was a great idea for business.” Clarey refurbished a van and launched Bedrock Pizza in September 2020.

As well as running the business, he has continued to volunteer at Amazing Graze and he is currently helping to transform the first-floor building into a church and community centre. “I needed a hand up – not a hand out – and that is what Mark gave me,” he said. Butcher, 56, said Clarey “was one of the charity’s biggest success stories” and a “shining example” of people who had been helped by Amazing Graze. He said they had helped each other since the lucky stroke of serendipity in a car park in Blackpool and they were “like brothers” now.

They had a lot in common, including both losing their mothers. “We related in our grief for our mums,” he said. Clarey is leading the team of volunteers currently turning the first-floor of Amazing Graze’s building into a church and community centre. “He is very gifted… he was also a top DJ… and can fix and do anything,” Butcher said. He added he was “very proud” of what Clarey had done.

Embassy Village offers 40 canal-side flats and support with budgeting, cooking and finding work, to help men start new lives and rediscover community, reports the Guardian.

It costs a lot to live by the canal in central Manchester, with even the pokiest of studios renting for £1,000. But in Embassy Village, the city’s newest waterside community, residents do not need to be rich. Quite the opposite, in fact. To live there, you have to be male, homeless and ready to get your life back on track. Nestled between the River Irwell and the Bridgewater canal, just across from the fashionable Castlefield district, Embassy’s 40 studio flats have been built under two Victorian viaducts carrying the city’s trams and trains. The land has been given for free on a 125-year lease by Peel Group, the developer behind MediaCity and the Trafford Centre. Peel owns the canal as well, which means residents can fish and kayak when they are not taking part in sessions on budgeting, cooking and getting ready for work. Embassy, the Christian charity behind the village, describes it as “dress rehearsal” for life back in bricks and mortar, cutting out the middle man of the shelter for homeless people.

Chris, a 57-year-old former painter and decorator from the north-east, became Embassy’s first resident after spending most of his life on the streets “travelling from town to town with a tent”. When the Guardian visited, he was particularly enthused about the angling opportunities, hoping to beat his record of a 29lb carp. He seemed overwhelmed to have his own front door for the first time in years, and a view of the canal. “I’m very lucky,” he said, as he marvelled at the pristine white walls of his new home, his private wet room and his small but high-spec German kitchen, kitted out with Bosch appliances. “We want residents to feel like: ‘Wow, I’ve landed on my feet – I’m going to take this opportunity,’” said Embassy’s indefatigable founder, Sid Williams, whose first foray into helping homeless people involved turning Mumford & Son’s tour bus into a mobile shelter.

Williams, a former youth worker, wants residents to feel important and valued. “In God’s upside down economy, the last, the poor, the least – in this world’s eyes – are his VIPs. That’s who Jesus wanted to spend his time with. “And we were like, wouldn’t it be great to take that literally? So that’s why we got a VIP tour bus that had been touring Tinie Tempah and Coldplay and had a deeply inappropriate champagne fridge on it.” As on the tour bus, drugs and alcohol are banned at Embassy, and no visitors are allowed. But it was a common misconception that most homeless people were addicts, said Williams, noting that about 60% of people were made homeless after a relationship breakdown.

More and more “average Joes” were ending up on the streets, he said. When he started working in the sector in 2004, many people were “institutionalised, coming out of the care system, the armed forces, prison and shelters … Whereas now, we find there’s about 300% to 400% on top, just your average Joes: people who just can’t quite make ends meet any more”. Those not in work are helped to apply for housing benefit – about £625 a month for a single man in Manchester, which covers Embassy’s rent and a few costs. “This is like a dress rehearsal at managing a home, managing your finances and holding a job down,” said Williams. “Granted, there’s a lot of hand-holding here. We have one full-time support worker to every six residents, which is basically unheard of.”

Preparing residents for life outside Embassy was crucial, said Tim Heatley, a co-founder of Manchester developer Capital & Centric, who was in charge of raising the money for Embassy Village as chair of the Greater Manchester’s Mayor’s Charity. “Helping them to clean, cook, budget, get a job, keep a job. If we don’t get that right, then it will have failed.” He wants residents to be comfortable, but not so much that they don’t want to leave: “I think we need to quickly move people from here on to their own accommodation – somewhere else that’s not state-supported – so that they can continue then to rebuild and go on and not be reliant on the state.”

In Manchester, where 1 in 61 people are homeless, the social housing waiting list is 15 years for able-bodied men. “No chance, basically,” said Williams. At Embassy’s other projects in Greater Manchester, residents stay for an average of 14 months before going into private rentals. “Between 92% and 95% of residents leave us with a full-time job, no long-run benefits, going to private rental. So we’re unburdening the council housing waiting list in the process.”

For Bev Craig, Manchester city council’s leader, Embassy Village is a cheering sign that “good people can do good things”. The council will refer homeless people to Embassy because she likes the emphasis on community-building. “When we talk to people that find themselves on the streets, it’s a failure of mental health services, it’s failure of tackling addiction, and it’s the failure of not being able to deal with loneliness,” she said. She hopes Embassy will “treat those individuals like they’re part of a community, help them develop, and teach them what it means to be in safe and sustainable accommodation”.

The village is designed to encourage as much social interaction as possible, such as at weekly “family dinners” cooked by staff. A sports pitch and boxing gym are under construction, as is a joinery studio run by Oli Green, who crafted some of the fanciest kitchens in Cheshire before pivoting to work with homeless people. The £6.2m build has been funded by the Moulding Foundation and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, as well as an extraordinary 130-strong coalition of local businesses working either for nothing or for zero profit – many of whom are also offering jobs and training to residents. But Williams is permanently fundraising to cover the costs of six staff members. James Whittaker, Peel’s managing director, sees the Manchester Embassy Village as the first of many. “We’re not stopping here,” he said. “We can copy this in every city in every town throughout the UK.”

London’s only dedicated drug and alcohol detox unit for homeless people is to close St Thomas’ Hospital has confirmed, reports the BBC.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the decision had been taken due to “rising costs”, adding that the service was “no longer affordable within existing funding”. The clinic, which is based at the hospital, ran with a £1m shortfall over the past year, and “there were also times when beds were underused”, the government added.

Co-founder of the Big Issue magazine and anti-poverty campaigner, Lord John Bird said he was “dismayed” at what he called a “short-sighted cost-cutting exercise”. The unit, which opened in 2021, worked to support people who sleep rough to “safely withdraw from alcohol and drugs as part of the first steps in a treatment journey”. The service also provided peer support, groups, and activities alongside a range of other initiatives focusing on stopping smoking, healthy eating, essential screening, vaccinations and mental wellbeing.

Lord Bird described the closure of the unit as “pulling the service out from beneath the people who desperately need it”. He added: “All we’re doing is pushing these problems back on to the streets. These patients will end up filling up A&Es, they’ll end up being more chaotic, they’ll end up in prisons.” The campaigner said the news of the closure “rubbished” the Mayor of London’s goal of ending rough sleeping in the capital by 2030.

The Mayor’s Office said that the Greater London Authority (GLA) “is not responsible for the unit and its funding”. A spokesperson for the Mayor said: “The mayor does not have powers to commission healthcare, but is committed to supporting vulnerable Londoners and recognises the importance of addiction treatment and detoxification services. That’s why City Hall has sought assurance from the capital’s health authorities that Londoners will continue to have access to detoxification services following this closure, and that any disruption will be kept to a minimum while a new service is developed.”

The BBC asked the DCHS and the City of London Corporation (which funds the service) about the possibility of a new service, as mentioned by City Hall, but neither would comment.