City Hall gave me my childhood. Opening this blog isn’t just hyperbole – it’s true. One of the most sane moments I’ve ever had as an organizer was when a little girl at a community meeting drew a picture of her dream home, and—besides the pink roof—this is where I grew up. The standard capitol of my childhood in the swamp was her dream.
I feel safe.She is one of 120,000 children in temporary shelter thanks to of‘No-fault eviction a year ago. i have a garden. She is one of thousands of children without access to green spaces. I have my own space where I can do my homework, sleep and play. Not only did she share a room with her sister, but she also shared a room with her mother, who had shown me pictures of rotting window frames rattling in the wind. No mold or mushrooms on my bed, no leaky ceiling. Of course, sometimes things go wrong. But things are fixed. Best of all, my parents don’t have to worry about rent, which means far less worry about other necessities. We are never hungry, never short of clothes, never cold.
We should all care about this because it affects us all. Like all poverty, housing poverty is closely linked to the climate crisis. Private tenants have the privilege of paying more for rattling window frames, moldy black mold and electric heaters, with astronomical energy bills to go along with them. But in the long run, we will all pay the price, as millions of tons of entirely unnecessary CO2 leak into the atmosphere, while the bank balances of many private landlords balloon.private tenants association Estimated annual savings of £595 If a landlord upgrades their property to basic of“C” EPC energy efficiency class.
We should all be outraged that this situation is the result of political choices. Successive governments have chosen to ruin the childhoods of millions by selling social housing instead of replacing them. 2 million social households They’ve been gone since I was born and there’s no sign this government wants to rebuild them on the scale they need, or fund councils and housing associations to keep them in good repair.
“Successive governments have chosen to ruin the childhoods of millions by selling social housing instead of replacing them. “
Inequalities within the system are high, creating and deepening divisions. On average, people of color face the worst housing conditions, and truly accessible housing is far from a reality for most people with disabilities. Regulation of the private rental industry is slow and weak. The Renter Reform Act remains just a promise — one that has been broken multiple times since it was first announced. If that happens, rent control will be nowhere to be found, replaced by measures that make it easier for delinquent tenants to be evicted.After intense lobbying by tenants and landlords over energy standards, the government has listened – landlords of course – and may give them another 3 years to bring properties up to standard, estimating the total cost to tenants at about £1 billion in energy bills.
But we should all be hopeful. The bricks and tiles of these homes have not disappeared. We have enough houses in this country — but the wrong people own them, and the wrong people make the wrong decisions about how much rent the rest of us should pay and what conditions we should live with. Just as houses are taken from the public, they can be put back. Rotten window frames can be replaced. Mold can be removed. Rent can be reduced. We have all the materials to do so – all that is missing is political will. The government’s, ours.
We want government policy to convert private rental properties – including those built by councils but now in the hands of private landlords – into converted social housing, saving tenants millions of pounds in rent and energy bills, and reducing costs. Millions of Earth tons of carbon.
This is a Radical but Really Workable Ideas — a version already playing some cities– This could change our housing system. But politicians of all stripes who have been ignoring or undermining our housing system cannot be expected to do the right thing unless we do the right thing. To do this, we need to build strength in our communities.
That’s where the Homes for Us campaign comes in. We’re already working with communities and groups living through a national housing crisis, from Birmingham to Yorkshire, Manchester to London. We want to take this idea to them and their councils, figure out how they can make it happen in their communities, and how together we can drive government adoption and fund recycling. Crucially, we want to do this in a way that puts these communities front and center, designing how policy works and leading movements to get it through Parliament.we are currently appealPay for a series of in-person events with tenants and tenants on housing waiting lists. This will be the first step in rebalancing the housing market.
If you want to support the campaign, Big Give will double your donation* through April 27th. You can support the campaign here.
*Donations will be matched until our £20,000 target is reached.
