What makes a right a right? Universal secondary schooling, for example, was a controversial proposal, vociferously debated in its day. Prior to its introduction, children were expected to work – and opponents of the changes were insistent that altering this would be to bend the wills of fate: the market would no longer truly be free – and in any case, children were just responding to the laws of supply and demand. They wouldn’t be working unless they wanted the money. Sound familiar?

Just think for a moment what the state of play might be if Britain was a place with free state housing for all. Like a free education, it would be based on the idea that every child in Britain has a right to prosper, or even to just get by. People have the right to sleep at night, free from the fear or actuality of cold, abuse, or prostitution.

Of course, like those lords opposing universal education in the 1870s, people may scream murder about the free market. But this ignores how, over time, most sensible people have come to accept that the extents of a free market should be constrained to prohibit things we consider grossly inhumane – like slavery – or where we see such constraints to be financially beneficial. We believe in a minimum wage; we put limits on immigration so that the financial prosperity of our country falls mainly on those British-born; and we believe in limiting individuals from having monopolies over the market, at least in theory. So our concept of how free the market should be, like how many rights humans should have, are based on the changing moods and sympathies of the people, rather than on a set of static, immutable truths.

Housing inequality in Britain today strips people of their humanity. Walking under archways, it’s hard not to notice homeless people shivering in sleeping bags, trying to remain inanimate, like the other non-human forms on the street that for some reason seem to attract far less abuse and outright disdain. The MPs elected to protect them push past without a second for compassion, righteously asking over Twitter why people can’t take their suffering elsewhere.

Less visible forms of homelessness can also be life-limiting. Hostel living can feel like a life as a character in a play, moving from one claustrophobic, impersonal set to another. In council housing, you might end up with a person you don’t know rewriting the script, too. That person can ship you out of your local area at a moments’ notice, uproot your children from their schools, take you away from your job – and from your friends, family and local connections.

But people will always offer reasons why free housing wouldn’t be a good idea. As British people, we have a distinct and marked dislike of giving things away for nothing. Don’t we? Between 2007-2011, the government committed to spend approximately £1.162tn bailing out UK banks. In 2016, the government forecast that £1.4bn was needed to build 40,000 new homes. In other words, the sums hastily agreed to put right the wrongs of our financial industry could have built 33.2m houses – enough for just about everybody in the country. Why do we support the state giving out huge amounts to the super rich and irresponsible, but so ardently object to the idea of it being spent on us, the people?

‘Between 2007-2011, the government spent approximately £1.162tn bailing out UK banks. That could have built 33.2m houses.’ Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

Some say it was in the hopes of prosperity, but the idea that we’re better off after the bailout than if we all lived rent-free seems unconvincing in the current climate, where a third of people live one pay-cheque away from homelessness. The environment is toxic, and fuelled towards profit rather than progression. The spill of luxury apartments across cities only further pushes up bills, while some are able to buy multiple homes for investment that they need never contemplate living in. The taxpayer picks up the bill for the cost of this inequality, forking out billions year-on-year to private landlords in the form of housing benefit.

Perhaps we feel that the right to a home would put people off working hard. But housing inequality means that hardworking people are prevented from “getting on” at both ends of the spectrum. Those who don’t have wads of extra cash or friends and family in the city find it hard to relocate for the best-paid jobs; while others find themselves opting for jobs that they are overqualified for because of the imminent requirement of paying rent.

But with free state housing, the wealth of the country could be spread more evenly, with an industrial strategy encouraging jobs outside of London and the south east, therefore alleviating housing pressures in those regions. The money for such policies would be more easily located in a country where people no longer hoarded in the form of a huge, static and unproductive asset – but instead spent, saved and paid more tax. The deafening buzz around places like London would mellow, as those hoping for a quieter life would more easily relocate, without so many anxieties about being able to make ends meet.

Rather than rewarding those who haven’t worked for it, recognising housing as a human right would deal with some of those who are truly rewarded for being lazy. Like inheriting parents’ homes: a surefire way to keep money in the hands of the families who’ve always had it. A world where homes were free wouldn’t unfairly penalise such people, just ensure that others get to start on the same level. And when stubborn evils like unpaid internships continue to exist due to their benefit to the middle and upper classes, with free housing, the poor could at least retain some semblance of a life while doing them. Working-class people could decide, like their middle-class counterparts, to follow a career path that they loved, instead of the one that paid right now – hopefully leading to more fulfilling and stable future careers.

The system would provide a more manageable way of maintaining links within communities; one that doesn’t feel so much like the free-for-all that it is now. New housing inherited by the government from the deceased, or those moving elsewhere, would be allocated to an annually defined number of people from outside communities. They would include those who had secured jobs in the city, so that top jobs were allocated on the basis of merit not wealth; but could also make provisions for those looking for work, or simply desiring a change.

Our own thought processes around housing would have to change, too. The right to stability, and even sentimentality could be respected to an extent, but in a practical way that accepts that people have to move on, too – for example if their family suddenly grows, or if their housemates decide to move out and new ones haven’t been found. These ideas, far from visionary, are simply facts of life for many millennials who have spent most of their lives renting. Should these issues be managed sensitively and fairly (rather than just in order for the few to make profit), they needn’t be such an ordeal.

Most importantly, people would have their right to survival and to dignity accepted on the basis of being human, rather than some capricious chance of fate. You might find some of the arguments flawed or unlikely – but surely none are so shocking as the fact that we still don’t see housing as a human right.

To many that might sound utopian. But to me, it just seems fair.