Incentives to sell to tenants won’t help most of us
The think tank Onward has published a policy proposal today aimed at helping private renters into owner occupation with incentives for landlords to sell us their houses.
Four early victories for the End Unfair Evictions campaign
It is less than a month since we launched our joint campaign – with ACORN, the New Economics Foundation and the London Renters Union – to end section 21 no-fault evictions, and we’ve already had some major successes.
Here are four things we can celebrate already.
Public backs better security for renters
As the consultation period on the government’s proposals for longer tenancies draws to a close – the deadline to respond is this Sunday – we are handing in our petition to the Ministry of Housing today. It passed 50,000 signatures on Tuesday, helped along by #VentYourRent.
And if that wasn’t enough to make the government pay attention, new polling from Survation finds that our demands have the backing of the wider public, including Conservative voters.
Jake White
Jake is Judicial Review Project Lead at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. His extensive experience spans the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Friends of the Earth and private practice. He has also provided pro bono advice to tenants at Waterloo Legal Advice Service in London.
Fitness for Human Habitation: Another milestone in the long road to a decent private rented sector
In another sign of the growing importance of the renters’ movement in the UK, government announced over the weekend that it would be supporting measured outlined in Karen Buck MP’s upcoming private member’s bill, which would allow private and social tenants to take legal action against their landlord where their home is not deemed ‘fit for human habitation’.
Samir Jeraj
Samir Jeraj joined the board in July 2017. He is Policy & Practice Officer at Race Equality Foundation. He is also a freelance journalist and co-authored the 2016 book, The Rent Trap.
Daniel Tompsett
Daniel Tompsett joined the board in July 2017. He is Head of Commercial & Operations at Adaptive Lab, a digital consultancy.
Hannah Williams
Hannah Williams founded RentalRaters in 2013, which allows tenants to review their previous landlords. She is Director of Technology at Harvard PR, with 14 years’ experience in marketing and communications.
Sean Cosgrove
Sean Cosgrove is a CIPFA accountant and project manager with ten years’ experience of local government financial management and strategy development. He is currently advising Clapton Park Tenant Management Organisation in North London.
Daniel Bentley
Daniel joined the board in February 2017. He is editorial director at the think tank Civitas, where he has researched and written a series of reports about the housing crisis. Before that he spent nine years as a journalist in the House of Commons, most of that time as political correspondent for the Press Association. He is a regular blogger on housing-related matters and has written for a range of publications, including Prospect, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.