In a sermon on homelessness, he called also on church leaders not simply to reach out and help rough sleepers, but also to speak out about the social and political issues surrounding them.

Dr Williams, preaching in London at the launch of a new ecumenical Christian housing charity, said: “We live in an environment where there is, or seems to be, an immense gulf between the needs of ordinary people for a stable background that helps them to be human . . . and the way in which a property market operates which seems to have very little indeed to do with human resource, human need or human dignity.”

He questioned why people who are employed in essential services cannot afford to live in the areas where they need to work and said that if homelessness was to be tackled effectively, the problems of human relationships that often lay behind it had first to be resolved.

“The homeless person is not simply a person without a roof over the head. The homeless person is someone who is deprived of relationship. Something has gone badly wrong in relationships, stripping them of that human background of love and friendship.”

Dr Williams was preaching at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, at the launch of Housing Justice, a charity formed from a combination of the Catholic Housing Aid Society and the Churches National Housing Coalition, a campaigning body made up of a number of denominations.

By combining the two charities, the Catholic Church, Church of England, Methodist and other churches are indicating a new determination to raise their national profile on issues of housing and homelessness.

Dr Williams said: “We are committing ourselves to raising a voice together in the public agenda.” He continued: “May we not be behind in challenging the assumptions of a society which does seem to regard so many people as basically being dispensable.”

The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, backed up Dr Williams. He referred to the “new poor” in society, a group of people who cannot afford to rent, let alone put down a deposit for a mortgage. “There are poor people in England today and we should recognise it,” he said. “To have somewhere we call home is a fundamental part of our human dignity.

“Home is the place where we build our families and find the space to develop alongside friends and loved ones. To be deprived of such a basic necessity is to feel less than human.”

Housing Justice marked its launch with a call for action on affordable housing. Its chief executive, Robina Rafferty, said: “The Government must address as a matter of urgency the lack of affordable housing, root cause of homelessness and bad housing. They need to build another 90,000 affordable homes each year, and bring 750,000 existing empty homes back into use.

“At the same time, church members need to do even more within their local area to help homeless and badly housed people.”

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