Food, shelter and clothing are the very basics. Exmouth has the Food Bank when income or benefits fall short and there are charities to help with clothing, but providing shelter is an outrageous disaster! Ownership of land and property has eroded the concept of fairness, replacing it with a fantasy that market forces bring balance and justice.

The most junior maid in Downton Abbey had an attic room - the Imperial Hotel had accommodation for staff that did not live locally. The "hospitality industry" is now moaning its staff have nowhere to live, having rented out all their rooms to paying tourists.

The market economy and property laws combine to put the profits of ownership ahead of the equitable use of resources. In recent news, tenants are being evicted to be replaced by holiday lets; developers are focusing on high priced properties; farm cottages are being joined together for more spacious homes with countryside appeal.

My history teacher taught that mediaeval English peasants had land to cultivate. Land and space were community resources controlled by the leaders. Indigenous populations all around the world from A to Z, America, Africa and Australia to New Zealand, had similar cultural policies. Land is a communal resource and shelter a community right. The World Bank has asserted the "western" norm of market price and competition overriding local customs in the developing world. Here in the English West Country we are suffering the consequences as are people elsewhere.

These comments are drawn from serious academic reports on the subject, so hopefully they will have a wider reading list than the Exmouth Journal. But we do need a revolution in the thinking of our politics and lifestyles.

Our local town and district council could make a very good start by setting tax on second homes much higher than on a principal residence. They wouldn't lose votes because second home owners live and vote elsewhere. A radical change in property laws and ownership will take many years, so would not help people who need shelter right now.

Councils have a brilliant plan for temporary individual cabins. They are small and basic, but give a sense of dignity and belonging to otherwise homeless people, with all the essentials including a postal address. This is wonderful compared with the situation of many people in refugee camps and slums around the world.

Tax on properties used for holiday letting could also be set to whatever works. Local businesses want visitors, but also need staff who need accommodation. Using property to make money from tourism over the heads of people without a home is contrary to common justice and caring, and surely is not what we want.

Housing only fits into a competitive market economy when there is a surplus, and that will only happen when building affordable homes takes precedence over the extra profits of more expensive houses - and then it will still take years to turn plans into completed housing.

"Learn how to do good, setting your hearts on justice, righting the wrong, protecting the orphan, giving the widow redress", to quote from a widely circulated book written 2,750 years ago. Hopefully those making decisions will take the advice seriously.

Decisions taken in one parliamentary session can last decades, housing policy, property law and global warming included. The housing crisis is now, before rough sleepers face the winter.