Few people can have worked in so many different parts of the housing sector as Chris Holmes, former director of Shelter, the housing and homeless charity, who has died aged 72 from respiratory failure. In each of many posts he demonstrated a passion for reform. Holmes helped to encourage both the public and politicians to be more sympathetic towards homelessness. He did this through powerfully argued messages about its causes and consequences. Even during the bleakest periods of the Thatcher era, he ensured affordable housing and homelessness remained on the political agenda.
Right to the end he liked to be known as a campaigner and activist. But he had also shown that he had the managerial skills to steer successfully one of London’s largest public housing departments – Camden council’s – through Conservative expenditure squeezes between 1990 and 1995.
Continue reading...