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Why we need renters' unions more than ever
Philip Jones - 16 December 2018
What these stories highlight is a more general social truth: to be a tenant is to be precarious, at continual risk of rent rise, legal disputes and being evicted.
In an era of rogue landlords and slum housing, renter unions provide much needed protection and solidarity for tenants.
The current government presides over a private rental market that forces tenants to endure illegal evictions, squalid conditions and harassment at the hands of unlawful landlords. A recent investigation by The Guardian and ITV found that landlords who have been convicted of previous offenses and have failed to pass the basic tests required by housing legislation are continuing to take rents from private property.
The consequences of leaving the rental market largely unregulated are devastating and far reaching. A study by the university of York published in October found that as many as 1 in 3 rental properties at the bottom end of the market are not fit for purpose. More disturbing still, it revealed that 250,000 families in England are raising infants in substandard rental properties. Slum tenure has become an everyday feature of housing in austerity Britain, a grim consequence of failed welfare reforms, insecure employment and a lack of affordable housing - a social ill that the conservative government have neither a solution to nor any interest in tackling.... See more
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