Day: December 21, 2018

Legal aid: the missing cornerstone of renters’ rights
Legal aid: the missing cornerstone of renters’ rights
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Access to justice is a fundamental human right – but one that is increasingly difficult to exercise.

Since the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), thousands of people are unable to access legal advice for help with benefits and debt problems, or with other tenancy issues at an early stage – so much so that the number of new benefit cases opened under legal aid has dropped by 99% since 2013.

This means … Read more

Health and home: how poor living conditions endanger wellbeing
Health and home: how poor living conditions endanger wellbeing
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This article is part of a series, ‘Shelter defending the right to a home’, that appears on theguardian.com

A place to call home – it’s a basic human right. Yet not everybody has one, and even families that do can find their health suffering from living in cramped and dirty conditions. That’s why Shelter is committed to defending everyone’s right to a safe home.

By any measure, a two-bedroom flat is hardly the ideal place to raise a family of … Read more