Venting about renting in Tower Hamlets
Generation Rent, a London-based organisation focused on changing the way in which renting works, last month launched a Twitter campaign inviting renters to share their negative experiences with pictures and hashtags.
Using the hashtags #VentyourRent and #RantyourRent, the campaign quickly went viral, with Londoners sharing their renting horror stories and posting photographs that give details of their living situations.
Renters from across the capital vented their fury. One told of having to endure bed bugs and cockroaches to live in Mile End for £570 a month.
Another complained of having to pay £700 of rent in cash each month for a mouldy room which the landlord has so far refused to treat. Dan Wilson Craw, Policy and Communications Manager at Generation Rent explained to the East End Citizen the idea behind the campaign.
“The idea for the hashtag was to get London’s private renters thinking about their housing situation ahead of next week’s election,” he said.
“For the first time, housing is at the top of the agenda, and we want people to realise that the next mayor can start fixing the housing crisis.”
The borough of Tower Hamlets is widely regarded as bearing the brunt of the capital’s housing woes.
“East London is right at the heart of the London housing crisis,” said Wilson.
“Rents are rising rapidly and regeneration projects are taking place, and private tenants are not protected from either of these.
“Stronger rights for tenants would go a long way to stop communities being torn apart. We will put the pressure on whoever is elected to keep his promises.
“Much of their success depends on how much power they can take away from Westminster, so I hope we’ll be campaigning with the next mayor to get that power.”
What happens next in the campaign is down to London’s two million private renters, Wilson Craw insisted.
“We’ll continue gathering and sharing stories, and housing campaigners will be protesting against the government’s Housing Bill,” he said.
“But what happens next is really in the hands of London’s two million private renters, who form the biggest tenure in London.”
Residents who want to share their renting experiences can tweet their pictures using the hashtag #VentyourRent or #RantyourRent @genrentuk
The future of ‘fair rent’ in London can never be
established unless the current social cleansing
agenda is tackled daily.
All East London Councils are operating
forms of social cleansing. The proof is
in the stats as well as in the fact that none of
the elected councillors in Tower Hamlets,
Newham, Hackney is speaking about it at all.
This is evident in the fact that the central topic which I have listed below,
are being left out of the Councillors’ statements:-
eviction = nil
possession = nil
S21 Notice =
County Courts =
Legal Aid = Nil
Legal representation = Nil
DWP= Nil
Anti-Social Housing Association=Nil
Social Cleansing = Nil
Community= Nil
Local Community= Nil
As part of the London Community Manifesto, I am asking all three Boroughs
to publish the stats on all aspects of Council Housing, Housing in their Boroughs and the correlations between Housing and the lack of socially and educationally productive e,mentions, support services that all three Councils have scrapped.
As the BBC London has carried a rare item of news on the Law Society
which has commented, albeit belated, on the alarming absence of “legal aid”.
There are many serious issues that can be held against the Law Society but the fact is that access to judicial relief against Social Cleansing and Housing Capitalism is almost non-existent.
That is bound to encourage more exploitation and denial of the ordinary people.
Applying the Rent Assault is a market act and none of the overall political agenda in any of the local Councils is geared to upholding local Communities or to backing Social support structures that are vital for the Communities in every ordinary populated Borough in London.
Every East London local Council owns significant chunks of properties in its area.
What is each Council doing with those properties?
Why isn’t there any noise by the paid post-holding “elected” Councillors?
Are the East London MPs doing even a fraction of the work they must do if their
“Constituencies” are to remain?
I ask this because I ‘recognise’ that career-based self-interest can propel the MPs faster into action than any number of rational, reasonable reminders by the people affected by the current state of tolerance by elected post-holders of the main pushers of the programme for Socially Cleansing most of the East End and East London Communities.
The “rent crisis” is a result, a consequence of the Councils’ failings and the pro-marketeering, profiteering agendas being pursued through local Councils.
0058 GMT London Thursday 19 May 2016