The Slum Housing Scandal
True justice for Awaab Ishak, the baby who died as a result of prolonged exposure to mould, doesn’t just mean making slum landlords pay for their crimes — but actually confronting the housing crisis that creates them.
18 Articles by:
Glyn Robbins
Glyn Robbins is a housing worker, campaigner, writer and academic.
Inside Gigademia
The last decade has seen a rising tide of casual contracts in universities, with stability and security for workers in freefall. It’s just one of the reasons our marketised higher education system needs an overhaul.
150 Years of ‘The Housing Question’
Friedrich Engels’ 1872 pamphlet ‘The Housing Question’ highlighted the mutual reliance between the housing crisis and the capitalist system in Victorian England. In the years since, that relationship has only deepened.
More Thatcherism Won’t Fix Housing
Boris Johnson’s answer to the problems facing renters is reviving Right to Buy – the very policy that turned millions of public homes into private landlords’ assets and birthed our housing crisis in the first place.
The Landlord Subsidy
Under Margaret Thatcher, the Tories saw housing benefit as a way to prop up private landlords – and today, it does so the tune of billions of pounds per year. It’s time to build public housing instead.
We Don’t Just Need Council Housing – We Need Good Council Housing
It’s hard to resist privatisation or gentrification when the council housing being defended is falling apart – we need to fight for high-quality public housing that really improves lives.
The Radical Legacy of New York’s Winter Rent Strike
On 26 December 1907, 10,000 New York families led by teenager Pauline Newman began a historic rent strike – more than a century later, their struggle remains as relevant as ever.
Lessons From New York’s Housing Movement
Housing campaigners in New York have won an eviction ban extension until January 2022. Now the focus is on changing the system to protect against evictions for good.
New York’s Fight for the Right to Housing
From 2005 to 2017, New York lost over 425,000 flats with rents under $900 a month. Now, at the end of the Covid eviction ban, activists are fighting to save the city’s housing from the next wave of destruction.
Making Los Angeles
Mike Davis and Jon Wiener’s new book ‘Set the Night on Fire’ chronicles the social struggles that shaped 1960s Los Angeles, from the Watts Rebellion to the Black Panther Party.
Coronavirus Has Exposed the Dysfunction of Housing in Britain
Whether it’s landlords demanding rent from penniless tenants or construction magnates forcing unsafe sites to stay open, coronavirus has revealed the reality of Britain’s housing game – and how it’s rigged for the rich.
The Fight for Housing Goes On
Labour had bold housing policies in the general election – but it failed to build a narrative that got them across. Now, the challenge is to engage with the movements fighting the housing crisis at the grassroots.
It’s Time to Be Honest about Housing
For decades terms like ‘affordable,’ ‘social,’ ‘mixed’ have been used as cover for market failures in housing – it’s time to move on from those schemes and commit to a real solution: council housing.
Making Housing an Election Issue
Finding and keeping a suitable place to live has been getting harder for years – in this election, Labour must fight to make it a right for everyone in Britain.
Housing Could Decide the General Election
In the upcoming general election, Labour needs to convince millions of working people it can change their lives for the better. That starts with a radical housing policy.
The Housing Crisis Reaches The Archers
The housing crisis has reached The Archers, soap opera of Middle England, with a storyline that shows how deeply the struggle to find a home is damaging people’s lives.
Jersey City: America in One Place
Jersey City is a microcosm of postindustrial America – where poverty and property development go hand-in-hand. Neglected for decades, places like this could decide the 2020 election.
The Neoliberal City
Housing campaigner Glyn Robbins discusses how the market is remaking the council estate where he works, eroding the bonds that build working class communities.