New tenants’ housing union set to challenge landlords and government

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New tenants’ housing union set to challenge landlords and government

Campaigners are preparing to launch a national housing union next year, saying it will give social and private renters, and leaseholders, the strength to challenge poor conditions and rising rents.

Suzanne Muna, the secretary of the Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC) said the aim is to create something that will ‘reshape the landscape’.

She believes tenants are being left to fend for themselves in unsafe and insecure accommodation while those with power look away.

Affordable rents an issue

Writing in the Big Issue, Ms Muna argues that government ministers ‘frame the crisis as one of supply alone, when it is in fact a crisis of affordability’.

She says many households are stuck in ‘insecure, unsuitable, dilapidated, overcrowded, accommodation’.

Campaigners accuse the government of being too close to large private developers and corporate social landlords.

She writes: “The developer’s goal is to maximise surpluses and profits, and their power is supreme.”

Ms Muna went on to warn that social housing providers are reportedly turning down poor applicants because they can’t afford the rent.

Tenants have no power

There’s also an issue with social landlords having permission to raise rents by CPI plus 1% for the next decade which will bring social rents closer to private market rents.

Ending Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions through the Renters’ Rights Act is ‘a very small step’, and leasehold reform ‘has faltered in the face of freeholder resistance’, she says.

She also fears that Awaab’s Law has failed to deliver the promised improvements and the law should cover private renters.

Decades of policy and funding choices have pushed the system backwards and Ms Muna adds: “Power has seeped away from tenants and residents because we have lacked a coordinated tenant and resident movement.”

Backed by unions

The housing union will offer support like a trade union, providing casework and neighbourhood organising, alongside national campaigning.

It intends to unite people, whether they rent from councils, housing associations or private landlords.

Rather than rely on landlords or politicians, SHAC plans to seek backing from the wider union movement.

The group says workplace unions have the resources and networks needed to build a national force for housing justice.

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