Nadia on... The Housing Crisis

The housing crisis is hitting Nottingham hard. According to the homeless charity Framework, the number of rough sleepers in our city has increased by a shocking 51% over the past year. Hundreds of families are in temporary accommodation, or sleeping in hotels and bed and breakfasts, with nowhere else to go. My inbox is filling up with emails from constituents in desperate situations.

But the most visible forms of homelessness are just the peak of the iceberg. Many more people are stuck in overcrowded homes, sleeping on friends’ sofas or putting up with poor conditions so they can keep a roof over their heads. For many, the prospect of owning their own home is growing increasingly distant, while renting often turns out to be a never-ending nightmare: because of unjust evictions, neglectful landlords, unexpected rent hikes, or having trouble finding somewhere to live in the first place.

Soaring house prices have meant a growing number of people spending decades, even their entire lives, in the private rented sector. Meanwhile, the law is still designed as if this was a temporary arrangement that people can choose to opt out of. Unlike in much of Europe, short-term contracts are the norm. Rent increases are unregulated, forcing many families to uproot their lives and move somewhere cheaper, over and over again. No-fault evictions are on the increase, contributing to the homelessness crisis. In Nottinghamshire, they’re now at their highest level on record - higher even than during the financial crash.

As I’m writing this, the long-awaited Renters Reform Bill is returning to Parliament. First promised four years ago, it’s meant to improve the situation of tenants - among other measures, by banning no-fault evictions and fixed-term tenancies, and preventing landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants on the basis of having children or receiving benefits. While I hope they’re finally implemented, these proposals are too little, too late. The Bill leaves a number of major loopholes that bad landlords could exploit to force tenants onto the streets. Among them is the failure to regulate rent increases - a sudden, unaffordable rent hike can amount to a no-fault eviction by other means. Meanwhile, while rents are growing at the fastest rate on record, the Local Housing Allowance has been frozen since 2020, leaving many renters on low incomes struggling to find any properties they can afford.

But reforms to private renting are only part of the answer. A real solution to the housing crisis must also include building many more good quality, affordable homes - in particular social housing. The waiting list for a council house in our city has hit 10,000 people. Nottingham is not unique here: the shortage of social homes is a nationwide problem, with over a million households on waiting lists across the UK.

Getting a council house wasn’t always associated with endless waits and strict requirements. After the Second World War, when Clement Attlee’s government embarked on a mass programme of building council homes, they weren’t meant only for those in the most dire need, but for a broad cross-section of society, including the middle classes. In some places around the world, this ethos is still alive. For example in Vienna, around sixty per cent of residents live in cheap, stable and often quite beautiful social housing, and the city regularly ranks as one of the most liveable on the planet. 

In Britain, however, the golden age of public housing ended over four decades ago. Currently in England, despite a growing population, there are 1.4 million fewer households in social homes than there were in 1980. The Thatcher-era Right to Buy policy, combined with a failure to invest in building new ones, means that we’re losing an average of 24,000 social homes a year. Although the government would prefer us to blame migrants or local councils, the social housing shortage is one created in Westminster.

Without a decent and secure home, it’s hard to find stability in other areas of life. The housing crisis is forcing people to delay or give up on starting families, making people stay in relationships they would otherwise leave, causing endless stress and having a devastating impact on people’s mental and physical health. Like with most crises our society is facing, those worst affected include working class people, disabled people, communities of colour, women and young generations.

The problem is serious, and so must be the response. Empty slogans and piecemeal reforms won’t do the job. That’s why I’m campaigning for the government to take real action: strengthen the Renters Reform Bill, introduce effective rent controls, raise the Local Housing Allowance, end Right to Buy and massively scale up building social homes. These policies would transform the lives of millions of renters - and with lower rents leaving more money in their pockets, more people would be able to start saving for a deposit to buy their own home.

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