At the moment, this issue couldn't be more important. As the amount of people living in privately rented accommodation continues to grow, so do the rent increases and with them, the number of people, a lot of whom are in work, who are forced to claim housing benefit. However, the discrepancy between the actual rent charged and housing benefit paid is getting bigger all the time. For instance, a two bedroom house costing £695 a month let via a private landlord/lady would give you an award of £480 a month. These figures are calculated using an individual who is entitled to full housing benefit, due to a disability payment and yet it still leaves an astonishing £215 a month to be found. Private tenants are still living in a perpetual state of no housing security, with just a two month eviction notice required in most situations, highly rigid pre-screening process and no right to buy. Something has to seriously change. It is not right to punish people because they are paid a low wage or are too ill to work. Let Norwich City Council feel some of the frustration and anger that I know is out there.

The UK housing and homelessness crisis has been torturing us for far too long, especially young people. #Vanlife may seem irrelevant unless you’re an Instagram influencer, but it is a growing moment encouraging minimal impact living, passive income and recycling of vehicles to meet social and housing needs. A UK wide permit enabling a cheaper and safer life on the move would liberate tens of thousands of people, and demonstrate to others that the cost of living can be far less than what they think is needed to live a full and secure life. Shelter is a human right, if we are denied proper housing, denied efficient homeless care, we should at least be offered assistance in our alternative housing methods.

This unified register would allow the lives of homeless people to be remembered and valued, with the circumstances of their deaths investigated and recorded, to prevent these personal tragedies from being repeated across Scotland.

Shared Ownership is just as flawed and toxic as 100% Leasehold. Shared Ownership needs legal reform to address these issues: 1. Lease extension premiums must be affordable. It has been left unregulated and unchecked, housing associations can, and do, charge 100% premium to extend! not 'affordable' or fair. You should pay your % owned of the premium not any more. 2. Selling shared ownership houses is complicated and costly. High admin fees and extensive fees are just the start 3. Unregulated and unchecked service charges are a huge issue - you are paying your council tax twice 4. Staircasing is overally complicated, not encouraged, and extremely costly in legal fees/admin fees alone. Shared Ownership is supposed to promote buying your home not hinder it 5. Rents are reviewed at RPI which seems unfair considering CPIH is used in housing costs, not RPI. 6. Housing Associations should have some financial responsibility to the house since they own a actual stake in the property.

Human Fleas ( Pulex Itritans) can serve as intermediate hosts of two types of parasitic tapeworms. They also transmit bubonic plague, murine typhus and tularemia among other diseases. Bed Bug bite causes adverse allergic reaction, bed bugs also carry serious bacterial infections as well as Chaga disease if in direct contact with people who travelled abroad. It is extremely important to provide healthy environment for all tenants, especially the vulnerable ones - children and the elderly .

Many university students - especially in London - can only sign a six months' lease on a shared flat or house. And when the lease comes up for renewal at the end of the six months, they find that greedy private landlords have put the rent up. If they can't afford the new rent, they are forced to move on. Renting for students in this day and age is not a pretty process. My grand-daughter has been forced to move house three times in eighteen months, causing her considerable hassle and distress and financial loss for hiring a van to move her stuff. This is a frightening, destabilising and depressing process that no student should have to endure. Every university student should have the right to establish a secure home-away-from-home with their friends. Those of us parents and grandparents who have to watch our young people being taken advantage of by greedy landlords will not accept that this is the new norm. So, James Brokenshire, will you act now to stop this six-months'-lease scam and give every student the chance of at least a twelve-months secure tenancy?

Despite the Housing Act 2004, there is still a recognised national shortfall in Gypsy and Traveller site pitches. This means that one in four Gypsies and Travellers are considered homeless because they do not have a legal place to park their home. Gypsies and Travellers are also often subjected to hostility due having to set up their own unauthorised encampments. Therefore, they are constantly receive racist abuse, threats, discrimination and bad media press, which can lead to high levels of anxiety and depression. However, at the heart of resolving these issues is the provision of adequate and appropriate sites for Gypsies and Travellers. As a result, every Gypsy and Traveller in the UK should have THE RIGHT TO A SITE!!

With over 320,000 homeless people in 2018, and currently facing its biggest housing shortfall on record, the UK has to make changes to Housing Policy. The number of households without permanent residence and in temporary accommodation is expected to reach 100,000 by 2020, which will only change through the delivery of more social and affordable housing. Following the actions of Welsh and Scottish government, abolishing the Right to Buy scheme will prevent the further loss of social housing onto the private market and will provide Local Authorities the opportunity to reduce housing waiting lists by re-homing vulnerable families. Between 1980-2018, 1,952,500 social properties have been sold by Local Authorities in the UK yet rebuilding rates are catastrophically lower, due to lack of funding. This, along with figures to show that some London LA's have repurchased previously sold properties for 6 times the price of the originally RTB sale, shows that the Right to Buy scheme needs to be abolished for the sake of the people.

The UK is embroiled in a housing crisis as there just aren't enough affordable homes to go around. Housing is a Basic need in society and for those who can't afford the increasing prices of housing, results in those being stuck in the private rented sector or being left homeless. The Office for National Statistics reports the average home in England cost an average of 7.8 times a full-time workers salary. The shortage of homes is causing prices in the UK to grow with the average price of a property up 4.2% to £224,144 making the average home unaffordable. Sign the petition to help us create more Affordable homes in the UK.

1. SOCIAL HOUSING NEED: Winchester has become an increasingly unaffordable place to live, especially for those on whom the everyday functioning of the City depends. The City Council had a good record of council house building until the Right to Buy and deliberate central government policy to deter investment in social housing. The replacement policy of building property for rent as part of commercial development processes, was based on the notion of ‘affordable’ house provision. In a place like Winchester the criterion for affordable property, that it should be leased at 80% of commercial rent, meant that it was not affordable at all for those most in need. Central government has, moreover, reduced the availability of ‘affordable housing’ through its concessions to the dubious ‘viability’ claims of the developers. A well known local architect has produced a capacity study which shows that the site could accommodate 14 x 2-bedroom units and 11 x 1-bedroom units on the space currently allocated for car parking. These type plans are based on ones devised by Peter Barber Architects which are built & occupied on 2 London sites. 2. Use of 'Brownfield' to PRESERVE GREEN OPEN SPACE: Recently, WCC has invested in a limited amount of new social housing, but it has so far achieved this at the expense of important urban open space (at Hillier Way in Abbotts Barton and expected in the Valley at Stanmore). ‘Brownfield’ is supposed to be the land of first choice for development and St Peter’s car park is an appropriate area. 3. St. Peter’s Car Park was ONLY ever intended to be TEMPORARY: It was built on the site of St Peter’s Primary School in the mid 1980s. St Peter’s School was demolished and turned into a temporary car park while the Brooks Development car park was being constructed. WCC always asserted that it would close once the Brooks opened. That promise is 30 years old. At each new provision of Park and Ride car park capacity WCC undertook to the Department for Transport and the Highways Agency, to remove an equivalent amount of central car parking capacity. Of the 1654 spaces thus promised for closure only 178 have gone, through the forced demolition of the ageing Friarsgate multistorey. The Winchester Town Access Plan (WTAP) 2011 promised an initial removal of 500 spaces. It is time to keep promises. 4. There is a PRECEDENT for this kind of conversion with the loss of car parking in Chesil Street to housing. 5. AIR POLLUTION would be REDUCED: Both Councils recognise that Winchester remains significantly in breach of air quality legislation and this is indeed one of the reasons for the Movement Strategy proposing traffic reduction. St Peter’s Car Park is on the central circulation system and is thus a traffic attractor to the centre. It is, moreover, immediately adjacent to St Bede’s Primary School and worrying air pollution levels have been demonstrated there. WHY NOW? (a) the need for more social housing is URGENT (b) WINCHESTER MOVEMENT STRATEGY: Winchester City Council (WCC) and Hampshire County Council (HCC) have published a draft Movement Strategy for Winchester which explicitly recognises the need to reduce traffic in the City and points to the need to remove central car parking. These proposals have received widespread support during public consultation. The Movement Strategy needs to be activated or it is in danger of fading away like previous plans (e.g. the WTAP) but is not so far displaying any sense of urgency and hesitates over uncertainty of funding. Since there is adequate Park and Ride capacity available now and underused edge-of-centre car parking capacity, there is no particular funding difficulty in relation to transport budgets. (c) FAILURE TO MEET AIR POLLUTION LEGISLATION: WCC has an urgent need to address its legal failure to meet air pollution legislation. It has been in an illegal state for more than 9 years and last year’s High Court and Supreme Court rulings were that authorities should meet their obligations in the shortest possible time, stressing that that meant no excuses of convenience or cost. You can find more info about this campaign with many more photos on our website here: https://winchester.greenparty.org.uk/social-housing.html Or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/winchestergreenparty/

This is important because no one needs to be sleeping rough here. The council has a duty of care to every human being A home is a basic need Until a person has ‘a home’ they cannot move on to the next stage of rebuilding their life and participating in society. Providing a home for people will ‘pay for itself’ further down the line as people are able to contribute to the Economy once they are part of it. Am excluded person is costly! Help them!

The tenant’s movement in Southwark will exist in name only if we are reliant on Southwark councillors to approve our funding. At a time when Southwark is undergoing unprecedented levels of regeneration such as in the Old Kent Road, and when Labour have a massive majority on the council, this seems like a blatant attempt to silence all potential critics of council plans. The tenants’ movement in Southwark – our Tenants and Residents Associations (TRAs), our Area Forums, our Tenants’ and Leaseholders’ Councils and our tenants federation (the SGTO) – all play a vital role in holding Southwark Council to account. Southwark Council is our landlord and we need the freedom to criticise them when necessary and to campaign on behalf of residents without fear of having our funding withdrawn. The recommendation to change the funding structure is part of a raft of attacks on tenants which came from the Resident Involvement Panel - a panel of handpicked individual residents and paid employees of the council which was set up without the involvement of any existing tenant organisations. This whole process was a sham and Southwark Labour should immediately reassure Southwark residents that they will reject these recommendations. We demand our right to have access to our own money, to fund our own representative organisations, and to have our voices heard.