Ali Cook, Dorset Socialist Party
You won’t find many people disagreeing with the idea that the state of housing is appalling.
Ten million people in England live in homes that don’t meet basic standards. A majority of these homes pose a serious threat to the inhabitants’ health and safety. According to a study by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, thanks to funding cuts and a failure to act, Britain’s homes are crumbling.
The decreasing quality of homes is also reflected in the increasing amount of mould that is being reported.
Doubled
The number of social housing tenants in England who are reporting damp and leaks has more than doubled in the last two years. In this time, less than half of the landlords have fixed the problem.
Two-year-old Awaab Ishak tragically died from a respiratory illness caused by his family’s rented flat in Rochdale. This prompted Michael Gove – the Tory cabinet minister responsible for housing – to pledge to introduce a new law that would give more rights and protections to tenants in mouldy homes. But little progress has been made regardless.
What about the other side of the equation? Following the Register of Overseas Entities, launched in August, the offshore companies that own 138,000 properties in the UK are supposed to reveal their identities. But despite the new transparency laws, the owners of around 50,000 UK properties still remain hidden from the public.
Royals
The identities of those that have been revealed include the royal families of Gulf states – like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar – that own £1 billion in UK property through tax havens.
Inequality is growing. We need mass building of genuinely affordable, good-quality, carbon-neutral, and publicly owned housing. And let’s take over these empty homes that are used by the wealthy only for their own benefit.
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