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TUSC housing placard, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)
Housing crisis: can't pay, will stay!
Nancy Taaffe, housing campaigner, Walthamstow
What do Focus E15 Mums, New Era tenants, and the residents of Butterfields estate in Walthamstow have in common?
Answer - when faced with a rent hike or eviction notices these tenants didn't accept the situation. Instead, they fought back.
Central to their successes were declarations, either explicit or implicit, of not moving, not shutting up and not going quickly or quietly. This tactic forced bullying landlords, whether council, charity, housing association or private, to reconsider.
Now we are faced with something similar on a national scale. The national bully is the Tory government and the hated Housing and Planning Bill 2015-16, which serves notice on secure tenancies and affordable rents. In response, we should declare loudly: "Can't pay - will stay!"
This bill will force councils and housing associations to sell off properties, further reducing affordable stock. It also introduces the idea of market rents for all housing, which in some areas of London means paying as much as £2,000 a month.
The bill will impose some form of 'pay to stay', which means assessing social housing tenants' income and raising rents accordingly. Even though this aspect may be amended, any presence in the bill means it will be a constant threat.
We urge everybody to join the demo on 13 March. If we unify the housing movement around the pledge not to move, coupled with the demand for rent controls in the private sector, we could not only kill this rotten bill but begin the fightback for a mass council housing programme to meet our housing needs.
Kill the housing bill national demo
Sunday 13 March at 12pm
Lincoln's Inn, Newman's Row, WC2A 3TL, London
See also:
We need socialist policies to end the housing crisis
and: Life on Cameron's 'sink estates'
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