The Vision Project

A VISION
FOR PRIVATE
RENTED
HOUSING
WRITTEN BY NICK BALLARD
Nick is the National Organiser of ACORN, a community union focusing
on the housing crisis and tenants’ rights.
For nearly two decades we have seen
the private rented sector (PRS) develop
at a rapid pace. The decline in social
housing, increasing gap between the LHA
rate and ‘affordable’ rents, stagnating
wages and rising housing prices has
increasingly forced tenants into the
PRS. Private tenants now include the
most economically deprived in society,
students, professionals, families and
pensioners from every demographic...
Having a home is at the core of meeting
anybody’s basic needs, yet we’re seeing more and
more people being made homeless due to the
end of their assured shorthold tenancies. The PRS
is inaccessible to many due to the high rents and
extortionate letting fees attached to any tenancy,
with many landlords rejecting people receiving
benefits. Tenants’ health is being decimated by
poor housing conditions across the UK, with the
most vulnerable relying on housing that is often
damp, cramped and overpriced.
This may be viewed as a worst-case scenario but
we have seen these conditions in member defence
cases across the country, with rogue landlords
taking advantage of people who have no other
option.
The right to housing is fundamentally about life
chances, providing shelter and a secure place for
people to live, confident in the knowledge that
they can build a home.
We need to see an end to a private rented sector in
which landlords and tenants are not fully informed
and able to act on their rights and responsibilities.
We’ve seen some positive moves towards reducing
the costs associated with living in the PRS with the
Letting Fees ban, and additional security for residents
with the government’s promise to end Section
21. However, more needs to be done to improve
the conditions in the PRS, make the sector more
affordable for those who need it most, and allowing
people to make their private rented houses homes,
not “property investment opportunities”.
Only then can people truly put down roots, stop
living day to day worrying about the precarity of
their housing situation, and thrive by becoming
fully involved in a community where they know
they can afford to stay without fear of eviction or
deteriorating health.
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THE VISION PROJECT