Housing

Tories move to criminalise squatting

In June this year the Communities and Local Government Department reported that 44,160 households were accepted as homeless last year — a rise of 10% on the previous year. In the meantime the Empty Homes Agency estimates that between 500,000 and 725,000 buildings are empty in the UK, enough to house around 1.8 million people. Rather creating secure, good quality and affordable housing, the government is criminalising squatting. A government consultation has outlined plans that “could make squatting a criminal offence for the first time and abolish so-called ‘squatters’ rights’ which currently...

Housing benefit cuts sharpen

The Tories’ planned cuts in housing benefit will cause hardship for hundreds of thousands of working-class families. Many will be left homeless and destitute. Before April this year, housing benefit awards were based on the cheapest half of private rents in any given area. Under new rules they will be based on the cheapest third of rents. But even if people rent in the cheapest end of the market, benefit will still be cut if the rent is above a set limit for the property size. Initially this will affect families needing larger homes, but eventually, as capped amounts are unlikely to be able to...

Return of the slums?

In this programme, author and journalist Michael Collins reviewed the history of council housing and interviewed some of the people whose lives were shaped by it. He presented it as a social experiment with a legacy of failure, and described the vision of “council housing for all” as “utopian”. The programme nonetheless went some way to redressing Tory and right-wing denigration. Before the great council house building programme of the 1945-51 Labour government, “the slum landlord” was king; most working-class people lived in hovels, often paid exorbitant rents, and had no security of tenure...

The Monthly Survey - March 1995

Click here to download article as pdf . - "Strong moves to a united Ireland" by John O'Mahony - "School cuts spark nationwide fightback" by Colin Foster - "The lesson of the animal rights protests: if the law is wrong, disobey it!" by Wayne Nicholls - "Mandela's government attacks the working class" by Bobby Navarro - "The fight for Clause Four" by Gerry Bates - "Rail union backs Clause Four" by Alan Pottage (RMT National Executive, Scottish Area) - "The diary of a Clause Four activist" by Roland Trechet

Cuts are a charter for homelessness

The Government is cutting the social housing budget to less than half of its current level. This cut comes on top of the cuts in housing benefit already announced. Fewer houses will be built. What's built will be more expensive - about 80% of average market rents, where "social housing" today is about 40% of average market rents. The 1.8 million households on waiting lists for council housing will be offered only that "affordable" housing (80% of market average rent), mostly from housing associations. Anyone who gets a new council or housing association tenancy will hold it only for five to...

Tories plan to chuck you out

David Cameron has said that “There is a question mark about whether, in future, we should be asking when you are given a council home, is it for a fixed period? Because maybe in five or 10 years you will be doing a different job and be better paid and you won’t need that home, you will be able to go into the private sector.” Under Labour creeping privatisation of social housing saw an initial assault on tenants’ rights with “introductory tenancies” for Housing Association tenants which act very much like a probationary period in a permanent job. The Tories are looking to take this further. For...

Bring Connaught back in house!

The collapse of the building maintenance firm Connaught spells an anxious time for its workers while Lovells, who have taken on much of the work, decide whether to continue to employ them on their contracts with various councils around the country. Some have lost their jobs. Last week there was a large rally to support laid-off Connaught workers and oppose the council leadership who were trying to wash their hands of them. One worker from Hull was left a message to ring a number when she returned from work. When she rang it she found herself in a conference call with 300 other Connaught...

HB cuts could mean 82,000 evictions in London

According to research by the coordinating body of councils in London, the coalition government's cuts in Housing Benefit could lead to 82,000 evictions in London alone. From April 2011 the government will put a new overall cap on benefits payable, and will adjust the maximum benefit payable in each area to correspond to the rent which has 70% of flats or houses more expensive than it, 30% cheaper. (At present it is set at the rent which has 50% more expensive, 50% cheaper). These moves will hit specially hard in inner London, where claimants congregate because of better chances of getting work...

Tony Benn: the time to organise resistance to this government of millionaires is now!

We reject these cuts as simply malicious ideological vandalism, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. Join us in the fight It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government's budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers'...

Clay Cross, 1972-3: When a Labour council defied the Tories

In 1972, the Tory government told local councils to implement the “Housing Finance Act”, designed to claw in a bit of extra money by increasing council tenant's rents. The context was in some ways similar to that of today – an aggressively pro-profit, anti-worker Tory government seeking to make working-class people pay for economic instability created by capitalism itself. There was significant working-class resistance to the Act, with several Labour councils initially stating that they would refuse to implement it. We reproduce below articles from Workers' Fight (the paper of the forerunner...

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