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From The Socialist newspaper, 19 September 2018
250,000 families living in "non-decent" homes: end slum housing now!
Housing demo, London, 13.3.16, photo James Ivens (Click to enlarge)
Robert Cross, school worker, Coventry Socialist Party
A quarter of a million families are bringing up children under the age of four in "non-decent" homes according to a recent report. This is shocking, but after ten years of austerity following the financial crisis, it's hardly surprising.
One in three homes in England at the lowest rents are "non-decent", and the number of those homes where children under four live has gone up by 75,000. "Non-decent" housing includes homes with broken heating, damp walls and even rat infestations.
Successive government attacks on working class people have led to rampant child poverty, slum housing, and landlords "getting away with murder" unimpeded by the law or by local councils - of any establishment party. This is perhaps unsurprising when many local councillors are landlords and letting agents themselves.
I work at a school in an area which has 36% child poverty, and many of our children are homeless.
They end up being sheltered in substandard accommodation owned by slumlords, or bed and breakfasts which are raking it in from vulnerable families because councils don't have proper homes to house people in.
The National Landlords Association responded to the study by saying "successive governments have failed the private rented sector". But it's tenants who've been failed by successive governments, because they haven't protected tenants from dodgy landlords!
We need decent, affordable housing for all, and to get that we need a massive programme of council house building, and rent controls across the housing sector. No-one should be forced to live on the streets or in slum housing.
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In The Socialist 19 September 2018:
Labour Party conference
The struggle to transform Labour
Momentum's 'The World Transformed' blocks discussion on Liverpool council struggle
Socialist Party news and analysis
Big drugs companies dodge £3 billion pounds in tax
250,000 families in "non-decent" homes
International socialist news and analysis
South Africa: new workers' formations herald fightback against Ramaphosa's capitalist agenda
Catalonia: 'Diada' 2018 an immense show of strength for republic
Socialist Students
Mobilise mass student fightback
Socialist Students campaigns at Hull freshers fair
Workplace news and analysis
POA walkout over government failure to make prisons safe
RMT strikers ready to up the ante over rail safety
University pay ballot: vote yes for strike action!
Birmingham home carers' protest demo
York health workers say no to privatisation
Liverpool airport workers demand decent pay
Leicester UCU fights redundancies
Socialist Party reports and campaigns
Join our Socialist sales drive for issue 1011
March to save threatened Liverpool Women's Hospital
Socialists and campaigners protest Leicester NHS cuts
Hundreds of Newcastle United fans attend Mike Ashley Out meeting
Huddersfield Socialist Party opposes racist EDL
Lewisham: binning the rates rise
Opinion
How Irish strikers fought apartheid - and establishment anti-apartheid leadership
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