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Director of Communications, Policy & Campaigns

Employer
Shelter
Location
London (Greater)
Salary
c. £100k
Closing date
29 Mar 2021

Job Details

Director of Communications, Policy & Campaigns

c. £100k

London

Over the past year, the evidence that the lack of a safe home is at the root of the UK’s most significant social problems has become unignorable. Individual issues such as housing shortage, unaffordability or poor quality have always been with us; but we have come face to face with the intersection of these factors with racism, gender, poor health, poverty, insecure employment, low educational attainment and a host of other factors. It has been nothing less than shocking. If Grenfell was the first act of a wretched social tragedy, COVID-19 has been the second.

Sadly, none of this has come as a surprise to Shelter. We’ve long argued that housing policy in the UK is broken. As a nation, we lack a clear, compelling vision of better housing, and for decades (under all administrations) long-term investment has been wholly absent. As a result, the human cost has become intolerable. But we’re doing everything we can to fix it. We intend to effect lasting transformation in housing policy, accelerating a shift in perspectives and priorities that will unlock vital change. In turn, we’re confident that we’ll soon begin to see a new generation of high-quality homes that people can actually afford, and where they can flourish.

Your remit will be to assemble a comprehensive case for new thinking; to develop persuasive and practical approaches to problems that people wrongly believe are intractable; and to amplify the voices and experiences of those affected by the housing crisis, so that we can start to tell stories with different endings. It’s a once-in-a-career chance to realise a better future for millions of people. Candidates will need to demonstrate a well-balanced profile, blending thought-leader, advocate, activist, story-shaper and captivating public communicator. But social change at a national scale is a team sport, and we want more than just a brilliant soloist: you also need to show us that you can lead a multi-skilled group of colleagues to deliver a clear set of strategic objectives, and play a full, effective and credible part in a high performing and collaborative executive leadership team.

To find out more, visit www.shelter-cpc.co.uk For an informal discussion, please contact Alex MacLeod at Cadence Partners on +44 20 7947 4960 or email shelter-cpc@cadencepartners.co.uk If you require the candidate materials in an alternative format, please request it in your initial contact.

Closing date: 9am, 29 March 2021.

Company

The housing crisis is now a national emergency.

Shelter was founded 52 years ago, not by the wealthy or powerful, but as a community organisation whose purpose was to change society. That means we’re needed more now than at any time in our history: for millions of our fellow citizens the fundamental human need for a safe home is ignored.

Forget finding who’s to blame for this. Shelter is here to do far more than just point out what’s gone wrong. We are here to put it right, and that’s why our aim is for this strategy to be nothing less than a turning point for both Shelter and our country.

Without a home, no one can achieve their full potential. With millions whose right to a home is under threat, neither can the country. We believe that because the need for a home is so all-consuming, a home is a basic moral right, and everything we will do from now will be done to defend that right.

We’ve all talked so much about the ‘housing crisis’ that we’ve stopped believing it can be solved. The phrase has become like wallpaper. But this is a national emergency, and one that demands fearless, ambitious action.

In developing this strategy, it’s been vital to start with our own people: those who rely on our services, our volunteers, our employees. We aim to rebuild a movement, stronger than ever, and a movement must start with a simple idea that unites everyone within Shelter, our best advocates. Change starts here, in our work with individuals, spreading through communities, and across society.

We identify in this strategy six million households whose right to a home is either denied or under threat at this very moment. Soaring rents that squeeze out food and clothing, being thrown out of your home through no fault of your own, simply being too poor to afford a home: the terror of homelessness is everywhere.

Many are living in grossly unfit and unsafe conditions, adults and children whose lives are blighted by fear and despair. Discrimination is rampant in private renting and we have lost sight of the simple fact that we need a home just as much as we need healthcare and education. We are building the fewest social homes in 70 years, at a time when more and more people desperately need them.

In Shelter’s services, our people work tirelessly to alleviate the sheer destitution they see day in and day out. We will be a rock in the storm every day for those who need us. But our aim is bigger – to cut this suffering off at source – and we acknowledge in this strategy that we can’t do it overnight, neither can we do it alone.

For the first time, Shelter is committing in this strategy to ten-year goals as well as three-year goals so we can be confident of building to the necessary changes over the next decade. And at the same time we commit in this strategy to building the movement of people who will make this change possible.

We plan in the next three years to have 500,000 supporters join us in our mission to respond to this emergency, through campaigning, volunteering and donating. It is people that can power the change we seek.

This national emergency has been decades in the making. Now is the moment to act together with one purpose. In the community, our hubs and shops will be magnets for everyone with a role in ending the national emergency. Nationally, we will work with everyone who sees the desperate need for change: no one group or party is to blame for the emergency, and no one group or party can end it either.

Shelter: it’s a fundamental need and a basic moral right. Please join us to defend it.

Polly Neate, Chief Executive

Helen Baker, Chair

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