NATIONAL HOUSING DEMONSTRATION – founding STATEMENT
Rent controls
Council housing
Now
This statement was written by the by the organisers of the National Housing Demonstration.
Unaffordable housing is destroying our lives.
Private rents across England have risen by almost a third since the pandemic. Last year alone, private renters paid landlords £107 billion in rent. Rents and service costs are spiraling for social tenants too, while millions of us are unable to access social housing at all.
We are the countless people trapped in unaffordable, overcrowded and unsafe housing. We are the private renters, social housing tenants, families in temporary accommodation, and sleeping rough. We are the workers, disabled people, young and old. We are people of colour, migrants, queer and trans people. We are all driven to breaking point by the same system, and we demand change.
Sky-high housing costs mean we work two jobs, and cut back on essentials to get by. We fear being pushed out by a rent rise, too scared to complain about conditions that make our kids sick. All the while, developers hollow out our communities, demolishing homes and building luxury flats we can never afford.
The UK has the highest levels of homelessness in the developed world. In some schools, one child in every class is homeless, while councils shell out billions to private equity firms for temporary accommodation. Disabled renters face discrimination and can’t secure accessible homes, while institutionally racist housing associations and council landlords neglect and mismanage estates, damaging our health and letting children such as Awaab Ishak die.
This can’t go on. Now is the time to fight back.
Keir Starmer was elected on a promise to “make housing affordable’’, but his government is super-charging the developer-landlord system. They expect us to believe developers and landlords will fix the housing crisis when these are the people who profit from it most. It’s not a housing crisis, it’s a racket, and this government is making it worse.
Another housing system is possible. When we had rent controls, tenants spent much less of our income on rent. When we built council housing at scale, working class people could access affordable and secure housing. We can end the housing crisis if we stop this system of profit and pain, but the government must act now.
We need housing that’s affordable and secure. We need a planning system that protects the environment, communities and homes. We need retrofit, not demolition. We need council housing, not private equity firms. We need a government that prioritises spending on council housing not military and intelligence support to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. We need rent controls, not 20% annual rent rises. We need change, and we need it now.
Let’s unite and fight for rent controls and council housing, standing together against our real enemy, profiteering landlords and developers, not migrants. We need to ramp up the pressure to end this rotten system.
As more than 40 organisations, we are calling a national housing demonstration in London on Saturday 18 April. We demand:
- Rent controls to stop rents spiralling further
- Central government investment for more and better council homes
We know our movement can win. Housing campaigners won an end to section 21, and across Europe, tenants are getting organised and winning lower rents. We can win this too, if we fight.
It’s time to end the racket.