Property News · August 1, 2017

Britain’s corrupted housing market needs more than a lick of paint | Abi Wilkinson


The latest bad sign is that landlords are increasingly refusing to take under-35s as tenants. Radical change is needed to remove the profit motive from the market• Abi Wilkinson is a freelance journalistHere’s a simple (but in the current climate, seemingly radical) idea: the purpose of homes is for people to live in them. As long as we have buildings standing empty, there should be nobody sleeping on the streets, in hostels or flitting between friends’ sofas, being careful not to remain in the same place for too many nights and finding they’ve outstayed their welcome. As long as we have the capability to build more good-quality properties, nobody should be bedding down in poorly converted garages and sheds, or sharing family homes with more than 20 other people.Children shouldn’t develop asthma, allergies and respiratory problems because the room they sleep in has damp and mould crawling up the walls, and because their parents are too scared to push the landlord to fix it for fear of being evicted. There should never have been a Grenfell Tower disaster. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, it is within our capabilities to treat safe, secure housing as a basic right – not a luxury, denied to vast swaths of the population. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…Britain’s corrupted housing market needs more than a lick of paint | Abi Wilkinson

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