When I shared complaints about my housing on social media, they went viral, and I began hearing from people in similar circumstances. It changed the course of my life

I never planned to become a housing rights campaigner. I hoped to become an artist; I always loved to paint. But events put me on a different path. It feels as if I missed an exit on the motorway somewhere and now I can’t turn back.

It started when we moved into a housing association flat on the Eastfields estate in Mitcham, south London, in 2018: my father, my two sisters, aged 17 and 20, and 19-year-old me. Before that, we were in temporary accommodation: a half-converted garage that had mould and damp on the walls and a bathroom the size of a cupboard. We had been there since 2016, waiting to get a permanent council property, but the new place was no better. The carpets and wallpaper were decades old. There were cockroaches, flies and woodlice. The mouse infestation in the kitchen was so bad, we didn’t want to use it. The glass patio doors were broken, so the place was freezing. We had lights that filled with water whenever it rained, especially in the bathroom, which had no windows. It wasn’t just us; the whole Eastfields estate was dilapidated, but despite residents complaining to Clarion, the housing association, nothing seemed to get fixed.

Brum Rocks, born out of community musical groups, will bring together dozens of performers to play a new anthem for Birmingham

When Steve Groome started learning to play guitar after retiring, he never expected he would end up in a band.

“At 66, I’m not going to get a phone call from Mark Knopfler or Eric Clapton. I might not even get in an averagely rubbish covers band,” he said. “But I don’t need to with this, we have fun. I just let rip.”

The party must ensure the benefits of significantly increased land values in the proposed areas for development are shared by all, says Miles Gibson. Plus letters from Christina McGill​​​​ and Peter Waterman

As a former town planning policy adviser to both Tony Blair and David Cameron, I have only one question about Labour’s proposed new towns: who will benefit from the significant increase in land value arising from granting planning permission for them (Labour will aim to reveal new town sites within first year in power, 20 May)?

Postwar new town legislation forced landowners to sell land to the state at the existing use value. The surplus from the later resale of the land at market prices paid for infrastructure and affordable housing. Angela Rayner gave no suggestion that Labour would deploy such heavy artillery. But if it does, it would be well advised not to announce new town locations until it has control of the land, “grey belt” or otherwise.

The hopes raised by the ANC coming to power in 1994 have, 30 years on, been dashed for millions still without a decent roof over their heads

A picture of Nelson Mandela watches over the dimly lit room where Maggie Mothemba has lived for six years. “He’s like my father,” says the 57-year-old, who remembers the day in April 1994 that she voted for Mandela’s African National Congress in South Africa’s first democratic election.

She was then “full of hope” to be on the list for a government-subsidised house to raise her two children – a key ANC’ election promise. But Mothemba is still waiting, along with 2.5 million households languishing in a housing crisis. In 2017, facing eviction from a private rental , she moved into a derelict hospital in Woodstock, a Cape Town neighbourhood, squatted by people protesting the slow pace of affordable housing development.

Social housing providers claim platforms are refusing to cooperate with requests to remove illegally listed holiday lets

Airbnb and Booking.com have been accused of facilitating fraud by refusing to take action against social housing tenants who illegally sublet properties to holidaymakers.

Local authorities and social housing providers claim the platforms are refusing to cooperate with requests to remove illegally listed holiday lets and, as a result, are depriving homeless families of secure housing.

Many put loyalty first – but some fear MP could hurt Labour by standing as an independent

Amid the pre-lunch clatter of pans at Islington’s Nag’s Head market, Danni Cane didn’t hesitate when asked if she still would be supporting Jeremy Corbyn hours after the local MP finally made it known he would be seeking re-election as an independent.

“Of course we’ll be voting for Jeremy. He’s the person who made it possible for my mum to get her own house. He’s loved around here,” said Cane, owner of the Avva Cuppa cafe and an example of the sort of deep personal connection with many voters that Corbyn has built up over the course of 40 years of representing the north London constituency.

Families say wait for charges is ‘unbearable’, as police say they must take public inquiry’s final report into account

The bereaved and survivors of Grenfell Tower must wait until at least 2027 – a decade after the blaze that killed 72 people – before those suspected of being responsible for the disaster could face criminal trials, it has emerged.

Families described the news as “shocking” and called the wait for charges for people to be held accountable for their crimes “unbearable”.

Planning experts are considering areas near Nottingham, Stafford and Northampton for housebuilding drive

Labour’s plan for new towns looks likely to focus on the Midlands as much as England’s overcrowded south-east, with planners already considering areas near Nottingham, Stafford and Northampton, the Guardian understands.

Close to the M1 and M6 motorways, some of the locations have the advantage of being in areas of Labour local political control, giving Keir Starmer’s government a better chance of delivering on its promise to have the first homes built by the end of a first Labour term.

Angela Rayner to promise party will build homes on sites by end of its first term and support private developers

A Labour government would aim to announce the sites for a series of new towns within a year of taking office, with the promise that homes would be built in them by the end of a first term, Angela Rayner is to say in a speech.

Giving more detail to a plan first outlined in Keir Starmer’s party conference speech in October, Rayner will tell a housing conference that Labour will strongly support private developers who create high-quality and affordable housing.

We’re interested to hear from people under 45 in the UK who have moved to a smaller community with a lower cost of living, and how they’ve been finding it

We’re keen to hear from people under the age of 45 who have in recent years relocated to a smaller, more affordable community in the UK – whether that’s a small city, town or village.

We’d like to know why people have made such a move, how their new life has been working out, and what the positives and the negatives of living in these communities may be.

Council spending cuts are forcing studios and venues to close, driving out the city’s creative businesses

Last year, the city of Leeds held a year-long celebration of culture, complete with festivals, newly commissioned works of art and community projects. More than 1,000 events took place, with hundreds of volunteers and local schools taking part.

This year, however, artists and ­creatives in the West Yorkshire city are being forced out of their workshops and galleries, and say the dwindling number of spaces is crushing Leeds’s creative scene.

Growing up in a poor household is one of the biggest barriers to opportunity, yet it affects millions of children

• Gordon Brown on the UK’s child poverty scandal
• Torsten Bell: We can easily end child poverty
• Archbishop urges Starmer to ditch ‘cruel’ benefit cap

Almost one in three British children now live in relative poverty. Former prime minister Gordon Brown last week referred to this generation as “austerity’s children”: children who have known nothing but what it is to grow up in families where money concerns are a constant toxic stress, where a lack of a financial cushion means one adverse event can trigger a downward debt spiral, and where parents have to make tough choices about essentials such as food and heating. Rising rates of child poverty are a product of political choices; that we have a government that has enabled them is a stain on our national conscience.

The headline rate of child poverty is underpinned by other alarming trends. Two-thirds of children living in relative poverty, defined as 60% of median income, after housing costs, are in families where at least one adult works, a product of the number of low-paid jobs in the economy that do not allow parents to adequately provide for their children. Unsurprisingly, child poverty rates are higher in families where someone has a disability, and 58% of children from Pakistani and 67% of Bangladeshi backgrounds live in relative child poverty. Child homelessness is at record levels – more than 140,000 children in England are homeless, many living for years on end in temporary accommodation that does not meet the most basic of standards. One in six children live in families experiencing food insecurity, and one in 40 in a family that has had to access a food bank in the past 30 days.