Rent controls now. Council housing not luxury flats
April 18th 1 p.m. Central London
“Sky-high rents and a lack of good-quality council homes is making life impossible for too many of us. Rising rents mean people are forced to cut back on essentials like food and heating, or they’re pushed out of their homes all together, cut off from family, friends and community. Homelessness has reached record levels and there’s an ever-increasing number of homeless deaths. Disabled renters face discrimination and can’t secure accessible homes, while institutionally racist housing associations and council landlords neglect and mismanage estates, damaging our health and letting children like Awaab Ishak die.
For too long successive governments have prioritised the desire of private developers and landlords to make a profit over our need for affordable, secure, accessible homes. This can’t go on. It’s time to fight back. On 18 April thousands of people from more than 40 organisations will take to the streets of London to demand change. We need rent controls and for this government to invest in more council homes.”
So say the organisers of this demonstration, a welcome initiative, which we are supporting. It focuses on rent controls and council housing. Whilst there is an urgent need for rent controls in the exploitative private rented sector, they are also required for council and housing association homes. The government’s policy of imposing ten years of above inflation rent increases will further impoverish already poor tenants who don’t have their rent covered by housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit. That’s why we have opposed it.
We have explained why the government’s Social & Affordable Homes Programme is a flawed programme which will not solve the housing crisis. It offers no funding specifically for council housing. Councils will have to compete with housing associations for the funding for 18,000 social rent homes a year. The funding that is available is not a fixed amount. Bidders are expected to minimise the grant and maximise their own contribution.
Steve Reed, in his interview with ITV made it clear that council housing is not a priority for the government. They are looking to the market, the large volume builders, to resolve the housing crisis. In contrast Shelter, in a recent report, has called for a ‘needs-led’ housing model. “If the government continues to pursue interventions designed to maximise private housing delivery even when these come at the expense of social housing, it is doomed to repeat the failures of the past and leave pressing housing need unaddressed.” It has reiterated its call for 90,000 social rent homes a year.
Chris Hichliff MP recently wrote: “With three years left to meaningfully address the housing crisis, it is time to put local authorities back in the driving seat with the substantially increased powers and funding they need to deliver the council housing revolution we promised.”
The demonstration, which we think should be an annual event, is one means of helping to build pressure on the government. There are no market-led solutions to the housing crisis. Only a programme at the service of social needs, with council housing at its heart, can provide the social rent housing which is needed to liberate people from temporary accommodation, the housing waiting lists and the private sector.
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 