Three stories that initially seem unconnected tell us a lot about the political climate this year.

The first, that homes for destitute asylum seekers were marked out by red doors by contractors, leaving inhabitants terrified because they were vulnerable to abuse and attacks. The second, that David Cameron planned to demolish “sink estates”, arguing that they attract crime. The third, the horrific story of a suspected murder of a homeless man found dead and set alight next to a tent in Salford.

For the government, housing is not just a choice of tenancy for individual households, but a marker of far deeper significance, even of moral character. The idea that the prime minister can unabashedly argue that large estates themselves, specifically brutalist buildings, foster crime is ludicrous, but many will happily believe him. There is nothing in the fabric of a building that urges people towards a life of criminal endeavour, as Cameron knows, but saying that estates are crime-ridden implicitly says that tenants on estates – often the poor, unemployed and marginalised – are inclined to violence and law-breaking. It fits the narrative of the undeserving, and feral, poor.

Once you view people in social housing, or those who are homeless or living in poor quality housing, as intrinsically flawed, it’s easier not to treat them as people. Invective against asylum seekers ramps up the risk of violence to the terrified tenants of the Jomast and G4S homes in the north-east. Tabloid headlines that claim immigrants are hoovering up social housing poison the political conversation on migration. The perception that these houses have been allocated to asylum seekers rather than locals is only worsened by the visibility that comes with the red doors. The fact that asylum seekers are mostly housed in areas without housing shortages, and that the housing is of such a poor standard G4S and Serco were upbraided by the National Audit Office, is unlikely to sway those invested in the hatred of migrants.

But hatred reaches a head: the fact that a homeless man told reporters he believed another homeless man had been beaten up by kids and set alight as he tried to sleep under some railway arches in Salford shows how little humanity can be shown to homeless people.

Speaking to a street homeless man in a shelter before Christmas, I asked if people were kinder during the festive season, with charity drives and volunteer drives for soup kitchens. No, came the answer: the problem was that more people drank and went to parties, and he lived in fear of being beaten up or kicked to death by bored people walking home who thought nothing of attacking someone for the entertainment of their friends. Without a house, or even a bed, he became nothing and was treated worse than an animal.

As long as housing is seen as a marker of social success or failure, this will continue.

Politicians who airily refer to “sink estates” rather than social housing, view homes as an individual’s responsibility. Never mind that in order to afford a starter home in most of the country, you need to earn above the national average salary: renting is for failures, and policy in the disastrous housing and planning bill hammers that point home.

The housing crisis is a collective failure of the government, builders, and property speculators to do anything other than inflate house prices. Rather than build, offer people more rights and regulate the housing market to prevent bubbles, the government is abdicating all responsibility for the nation’s poor housing, and instead ramping up policies that will increase homelessness, poverty and destitution.

To do this effectively, you have to convince the public that the homeless person on the street corner, the people in poverty on an estate that’s soon to be demolished, and the destitute asylum seekers, have no right to housing and are directly to blame for their circumstances.

If people are busy punching down, they’ll neglect to look up and see where the blows are really coming from.

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