Your donations will allow us to work with tenants, residents and housing groups to establish a new, democratic and inclusive national tenants' and residents' union.
Members of SHAC and other housing campaign groups are all too keenly aware that a deep and devastating housing crisis has developed in Britain.
Tenants and residents are outflanked when trying to challenge large, powerful corporate landlords who have seemingly endless resources and superior access to decision makers in local and national government, and to influencers through the press.
Why a new, national tenants' and residents' union is needed
In the current context, landlords have the power and resources to silence opposition and challenge by those trying to highlight that things have gone wrong.
And while there are many community and campaign groups supporting tenants and residents, there is currently no unifying national tenant and resident union of sufficient scale to redress this power imbalance. Within this context we see:
- Estates left with life-threatening disrepairs;
- Rising rents, service charge abuse;
- Race and disability discrimination, and a failure to provide accessible housing:
- Antisocial behaviour;
- A loss of low cost rental housing;
- The stigmatisation of renters and the concept of social housing;
- Lack of access to legal remedy for housing issues;
- Revenge evictions; and
- Landlord harassment.
As well as the devastating impact on the lives of occupants, pay rises are too easily siphoned off to landlords, and our members have to take time off work due to sickness caused by unhealthy homes, the psychological strain of persistent antisocial behaviour, and the cumulative stress of defending themselves in the landlord’s war of attrition. Maintaining stable employment is almost impossible when workers are forced to relocate regularly or even end up homeless due to unjustified evictions and the lack of genuinely affordable housing.
The aims of a new, national tenants' and residents' union
Like a trade union, such a body would:
- Support tenants and residents with individual casework;
- Support and resource members to campaign collectively on their estates;
- Advocate for legal and political policy changes that favour tenants and residents, not landlords.
- Provide an alternative narrative to the media - one based on the perspective of tenants and residents, not landlords.
A new union needs to be a unifying force that would end the artificial divisions between different categories of tenants and residents, and different types of landlord. A union on a mass scale will be able to unite renters, shared owners, and leaseholders. It will also be open to all, irrespective of their landlord, whether council, housing association, or private, and seek to address problems with managing agents.
The funding
Your donation will allow us to organise a conference of all interested parties, including the cost of hiring a venue and paying travel costs for those who need it. It will help us print leaflets to distribute across housing estates and in local communities, and post them out to our activists across the UK. It will also help us cover basic administration costs as we work to bring individuals, campaign groups, and the trade unions together to turn our vision into reality.
Next steps
SHAC is working with campaign partners and the trade unions to launch a national tenants and residents union, backed by the trade unions, and helping to empower people in their own communities who are fighting for housing justice.