Building social housing is the only effective, long-term cure for the housing crisis. That’s why last week we joined with the National Housing Federation, Crisis, the Chartered Institute for Housing and the Campaign to Protect Rural England to fight for the homes we need: a funded programme of 150,000 social and affordable homes a year. From this Saturday, Shelter will be taking to the streets to ask you to add your support to our campaign, starting with our first … Read more
Tag: campaigning
Scrapping Section 21: a victory for every housing campaigner
15 April was a cause for big celebration. Renters won an important campaign which will change the way all private tenants are treated in our country. In case you missed it, the government announced plans to scrap Section 21, effectively fixing renting in the private sector by bringing an end to no-fault evictions. It’s a move that could finally give tenants the right to stay in their homes.
If made into law, this will improve renting for every one of … Read more
Zoopla bans DSS discrimination
We’re celebrating another huge win in the fight to end DSS discrimination, as Zoopla announced that they are banning ‘no DSS’ adverts from their website!
Zoopla are the first major property portal site to scrap this open prejudice, which plagues portals by deterring renters receiving housing benefit from applying to homes, even when they can afford the rent.
For far too long, tenants have been barred from renting a home simply because they receive housing benefit – but changes like … Read more
Longer tenancies – what next?
On 26 August the government closed its consultation on three-year tenancies. Over the course of seven weeks, our supporters took advantage of a golden window of opportunity to make the case for more secure housing.
If longer tenancies became law, every renter in England would be better off. Renters would no longer live with the insecurity of being bounced from one house to the next on 6-12 month contracts. Instead they’d have the chance to make a house a home… Read more
Keep up the pressure - help ban combustible cladding
After the Grenfell Tower fire, it was clear that more had to be done to make people’s homes safe.
So far, campaigners, politicians and health and safety experts have been alarmed at the slow progress government has made in making tower blocks safe.
A hollow victory?In May, after months of campaigning, we had our first breakthrough: the government promised an ‘estimated £400 million’ to fully fund the removal and replacement of cladding on socially owned tower blocks.
While at … Read more
How much?! Your top 10 worst letting fees
There’s something to celebrate for private renters: the government’s hotly anticipated ban on letting fees is approaching its second reading. Because for too long, renters have been ripped off – shelling out £272 per person (on average) in fees. Together with our supporters, we’ve campaigned for years to stop this, so we’re delighted to see the government taking action through the Tenant Fees Bill.
Letting agents, and some landlords, aren’t quite so jubilant. Their days of charging outrageous fees are … Read more
Does campaigning actually work? What we achieved in 2017
Campaigning to bring safe, secure and affordable homes to all isn’t an easy mission. However, with your support last year we took some massive steps to getting there. Not only for the thousands we help on a day-to-day basis across the country through our advice and service provision, but also for the millions who stand to benefit from some of our campaigning achievements last year.
Here’s a shortlist of our campaigning highlights from 2017.
Building more homesThroughout the year … Read more
7 things to consider when communicating about welfare
You may have seen mine and Paul’s previous blogs about our campaign to soften public attitudes towards welfare, so that political parties will feel less emboldened to implement further cuts, and will work towards improving the system going forward.
We’ve just finished our second pilot of the campaign. We learnt from our target audience and applied some behaviour change theory to our campaigning approach. Here’s seven things we’ve learned (in no particular order).
1. Be authentic
The public can tell … Read more
Swipe right for more affordable homes: why Shelter put a brick on Tinder
When Boris Johnson came on stage at the 2014 Conservative party conference brandishing a brick, claiming “you shall not be alone”, it got us thinking.
Bricks aren’t solitary creatures. They should be cemented together into new homes, to solve the housing shortage. But without politicians building enough of those, they’re stuck sitting by themselves.
So we thought, what better way to find a mate for a single brick – and highlight the issue to some of the young people directly … Read more
Action for renters?
I like the idea of people power – people on their own or coming together to resolve issues in the market. It’s something we hear a lot of at Shelter – we get sent lots of suggestions to help tenants make educated choices, such as tenant training and tripadvisor-style websites.
But until recently, examples of real hands-on private renters campaigning were few and far between, save for the likes of longstanding groups in Brent, Camden, Scarborough and Blackpool… Read more