Housing

Eviction ban protestors head to Parliament Square to stop 'tidal wave'

RORA backers Homes for All are leading the campaign to demand the Government honours its pledge that “no-one will lose their home during a pandemic”

Homes for All

Protestors will head to Parliament Square this morning during Prime Minister’s Questions to ask Boris Johnson: “Will you stop the tidal wave of evictions?”

Campaigners Homes for All, who back The Big Issue’s Ride Out Recession Alliance, organised the socially distanced protests to demand that the government extends the evictions ban beyond September 20.

Last week Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick announced that eviction proceedings will be heard in courts once again from September 21 with renters offered the protection of an extended six-month eviction notice period and a ‘Christmas truce’ that will mean no one can be evicted over the holiday period. A similar truce will be brought in for any area that is under local lockdown.

Homes for All, a non-party alliance of tenants, trade unionists and local housing activists, argue that the action does not honour the pledge made at the start of the Covid-19 crisis when ministers vowed that “no-one will lose their home during a pandemic”.

With 230,000 households facing rent arrears through no fault of their own due to the pandemic according to research by Shelter, protestors are warning that thousands will be vulnerable to eviction once the ban ends.

“In London today, an 83 year-old woman is being threatened with eviction by her private landlord, from a home she’s lived in for 50 years. The current eviction ban is all she has to protect her,” said Glyn Robbins of Homes for All, a housing worker.

“That’s the brutal world the government want to return to. They said they would end Section 21 evictions, but that hasn’t happened. Our question for the Prime Minister is: where’s the promised action – or will tenants lose their homes due to the pandemic?”

Fellow RORA members Generation Rent and the Social Housing Action Campaign are also supporting this morning’s action alongside Radical Housing Network and Streets Kitchen.

Alicia Kennedy, Generation Rent director, added: “When the eviction ban is lifted renters who’ve already had notice from their landlord will have no idea what protections they’ll have left. Tens of thousands of renters are already in the system and set to lose their home this winter. When you lose income it becomes really hard to find another home you can afford or a landlord who will take you.

“The benefits system doesn’t cover rents and landlord discrimination is common. The government needs to act now to deliver on their promise that no renter will lose their home due to coronavirus. We’re calling for emergency legislation to end coronavirus evictions and funding to end the rent debt crisis.”

Image: Homes for All

Support the Big Issue

For over 30 years, the Big Issue has been committed to ending poverty in the UK. In 2024, our work is needed more than ever. Find out how you can support the Big Issue today.
Vendor martin Hawes

Recommended for you

View all
Housing crisis: Shared ownership an 'unbearable reality' which has 'failed to deliver', MPs warn
Housing

Housing crisis: Shared ownership an 'unbearable reality' which has 'failed to deliver', MPs warn

Most tenants have never heard of the beleaguered Renters Reform Bill
Renters and the Renters Reform Bill
Renting

Most tenants have never heard of the beleaguered Renters Reform Bill

ONS U-turns on plan to stop publishing data on deaths of homeless people after furious outcry
homeless deaths
homelessness

ONS U-turns on plan to stop publishing data on deaths of homeless people after furious outcry

UK housing is worst value for money of any advanced economy: 'We are a joke'
UK houses are the worst value for money
Housing

UK housing is worst value for money of any advanced economy: 'We are a joke'

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Here's when UK households to start receiving last cost of living payments
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Here's when UK households to start receiving last cost of living payments

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know