Campaigners “evicted” Housing Minister Robert Jenrick from his office to demand an the eviction ban is extended until the pandemic is over.
Forty tenants held a mock eviction hearing at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) in Whitehall ahead of the pandemic eviction ban protections drawing to a close, with activists holding simultaneous protests in Portsmouth, Southend, Hammersmith and Shipley.
The protections, introduced at the start of the pandemic, ensured that landlords could not evict tenants that had fallen into rental arrears or for other reasons, with court eviction dates required to be scheduled at least six months in advance to protect tenants. If a person has Covid or is self-isolating, however, bailiffs will not be allowed to enter their home.
Charities and campaigners have warned that thousands of renters will wake up on 1 June with “nowhere to go,” with “a perfect storm” brewing for one in 445,000 private renters that the housing charity Shelter said had been threatened with eviction by their landlord or letting agent, who cannot find suitable and affordable housing due to a decades-long shortage in properties.
Shelter warned that without any financial support, ending the ban could plunge thousands of people into homelessness. It says 17.5 million people are now impacted by what it is calling a housing emergency.
Campaigners from Momentum’s Eviction Resistance campaign are demanding an end to section 21 “no-fault” evictions; the cancellation of all pandemic rent debt; and the extension of the eviction ban until the pandemic is over.
Jordan Osserman, a Momentum member from Tower Hamlets who was served an eviction notice in 2020 by a billionaire landlord, said: “Our landlord tried to evict us because we organised with other tenants to ask for a rent reduction during the pandemic. This broken housing market leaves ordinary people at the mercy of literal billionaires. Renters need to organise together to demand fundamental change.”
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who supported the action, said: “Even before the crisis, tenants were being crushed between high rents and low wages. The Covid crisis has only made the situation worse.
“Meanwhile, UK billionaires have increased their wealth by more than £237m a day since the pandemic began.
“Enough is enough – we have to defend working people against the greed of the mega landlords. We need transformative solutions, like banning no-fault evictions and cancelling all pandemic rent debt.”
Apsana Begum, Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, said: “The pandemic has hit renters incredibly hard. Now the Tories are letting vulnerable people be evicted during a pandemic in order to guarantee the profits of mega landlords.”
“The Government must take action to protect renters now. From banning ‘no-fault’ evictions to cancelling pandemic rent debt, there are immediate steps we could take to prevent renters from bearing the brunt of the crisis.”
An MHCLG spokesman said: “Our position remains that it is unacceptable for leaseholders to pay unaffordable costs in relation to historic safety defects in their buildings and we do not expect they will pay anywhere near these hypothetical maximum costs. We have also provided £1.6bn for the swift replacement of unsafe cladding on buildings over 18m.
“We are speeding up work with leaseholders and the financial sector to develop proposals that will further protect leaseholders from unaffordable remediation costs, without passing these costs on to taxpayers.
“This is in addition to the draft Building Safety Bill which outlines the most fundamental improvements to building safety in 40 years, making sure people will be safer in their homes.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3i7mS0d
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