When it comes to thinking about how housing can be delivered in difficult times, Terrie Alafat has been here before.

She served for 13 years as director of housing at the housing ministry, (then known as Department for Communities and Local Government), until 2015. While there she headed up the department’s attempts to wrestle with the question of what policies were needed to deliver the right kind of housing as the United Kingdom recovered from the 2008 financial crisis.

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