No More Unhelpful Hacks – a clear message to the government to take responsibility for the crisis and make housing more affordable

In 2022, the nation’s attention was absorbed by the cost-of-living crisis. Though it felt like the price of everything had skyrocketed overnight, the cost of housing has in fact been rising for decades. Shelter wanted to put pressure on the government to resolve this emergency, so we set out to get politically engaged renters talking about unaffordable housing by surrounding the contexts that shape their worldview and the environments where conversations happen.  

We took a swipe at the futile cost-of-living hacks we’d all seen in recent months, appearing in left-leaning news titles, across Twitter and Reddit and in pubs up and down the country. Flyposting in neighbourhoods with a high proportion of renters and a mural in Shoreditch took our campaign to the communities where substandard housing is a major issue, and a billboard outside the Conservative Party conference made sure the government got the message. 

Our campaign inspired a groundswell of support for Shelter, with donations up 41% year-on-year. Crucially, we started a national conversation about affordable housing as a real solution to the cost-of-living crisis, with a 90% increase in buzz and over 100,000 likes and shares of our campaign on social media.