RENT controls are the only way to end Scotland’s housing crisis, campaigners claim.
Activists from the Living Rent Campaign spoke out following the launch of a new website covering 100 years of progress – and stagnation – in housing.
Starting in the wake of the 1919 Housing Act, scotlandhousingcrisis.org.uk uses stark photography and vintage news reel footage to document the changes in living conditions, with an interactive map of Scotland showing just how far we still have to go.
Launching the website today, Graeme Brown, director of housing charity Shelter Scotland, said: “This is a fascinating look at housing in Scotland over the last 100 years and depicts all too clearly the utter destitution and suffering caused by bad housing and homelessness that was – and still is – being faced by thousands of people in Scotland.
“It shows us that great progress has been made in terms of legislation, support services and the quality of housing over the last century, but the stark reality is that we still have a long way to go, with many of the failings of the housing system that led to Shelter Scotland being formed in 1968 still existing today.”
The material takes in the rent strikes of pioneering campaigner Mary Barbour, who mobilised her community in Govan, Glasgow, to stand up for tenants’ rights and defy rising prices from landlords in 1915.
It also covers the slum clearances of the 1930s, when 63 per cent of people in Dundee still lived in one- or two-roomed homes, the post-war building boom and the rise of new towns like East Kilbride and Cumbernauld.
The site details the full extent of the current problems facing Scots who do not own their own homes, with 150,500 households on accommodation waiting lists and one in ten properties riddled with dampness or condensation.
Almost half of all social housing falls beneath the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.
Living Rent Campaign organiser Gordon Maloney welcomed the site, saying: “Our campaign was set up last year looking at what we see as a crisis developing in the private rental sector.
“In the past some of the successes have come from a really vibrant tenants’ movement. That seems to have died out but we want to bring it back.”
The campaign has support from organisations that formally represent more than one million people, including Unison, Zero Tolerance and the National Union of Students.
Calling for rent controls and an end to no-fault repossessions, where tenants can be removed from properties at the end of a lease with no reason given, it also wants greater security for renters and upgrades to properties.
Maloney says this would bring major benefits to society, improving health, wealth and wellbeing.
He told The National: “We can’t see any solution to the housing crisis that doesn’t involve rent controls. We did have them but they were stopped under Thatcher and we want them brought back.
“Rent has just gone out of control. The amount of people living in the private rented sector has exploded. In central Edinburgh the average rent is £1,000 a month for a two-bedroom flat, and in Aberdeen it’s way above that.
“Rent controls would also incentivise landlords to upgrade their properties by limiting the amount they could charge where improvements have not been made. Tenants live in cold housing and in fuel poverty and in horrible conditions.
“There is this perception that poor-quality housing is housing which is inconvenient or a little bit scruffy. The reality is that it is literally killing people. There is a well-established link between draughts or cold and excess winter deaths, for example.
“We also need to see more protection for tenants and an end to no-fault repossessions where you can be told to leave your home for no reason. Scottish tenants are amongst the least protected in Europe. More and more children are living in the private rented sector and this kind of insecurity is just not appropriate.”
The website states: “The housing crisis in Scotland isn’t just about houses – it’s about people. It’s about the family struggling to meet next month’s mortgage payment. The young family renting a rundown flat, wondering if they’ll ever be able to afford a home of their own. It’s about the children living in temporary accommodation, forced to change schools every time they move.
“The slums might be gone, but the lack of affordable, decent homes in Scotland today still affects families and individuals across the whole country.”
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