20 December

Today's the day when in 1979 the Government announced that more than 5 million council tenants would be given the right to buy their home. This policy has proved extremely popular and since then over 1½ million council properties have been bought. The downside of the scheme is that it has contributed to a reduction in the number of available council homes so there is now a shortage of social housing across the UK. 

As Christmas approaches we think about the plight of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, with no suitable accommodation available to them. And we are right to think of people who are homeless and inadequately housed today. That's something that has always been on God's heart. This is what he said through the prophet Isaiah:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe him,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?