Have a say regarding your rents and what improvements YOU want to see happen!

On Thursday 4th at 7pm, GHA tenants in Pollokshaws are organising a meeting to hold their landlord to account. GHA should be freezing rents this year!

In April 2020, GHA applied a 3.4% increase - nearly 4 times the rate of inflation!! Despite reduced services and GHA not carrying out repairs since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, GHA is still planning to increase rents this year! GHA needs to put tenants, not rent first! 

If you are a GHA tenant who lives in Pollokshaws, come along and invite a friend/neighbour so we can plan how to hold GHA to account! 

The meeting will last one hour using Zoom - if you are not familiar with Zoom, get in touch. 

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Member by member Living Rent is growing stronger. If you have recently joined, looking to get more involved or want to understand the unions history, vision and structure better come along to this training!

• An introduction to Living Rent
• The structure: branches, teams and roles
• Getting involved and next steps

Get to grips with the vision of Living Rent and be part of building one of the most exciting grassroots unions in Scotland.

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Our targets’ interests, financial position, or internal organisation can be quite opaque, hidden behind technical terms or not publicly accessible.

This training session will look at how to ‘dig’ for more information, whether through Freedom of Information requests or using the site company house and at how to analyse planning documents and balance sheets. This session is meant as an introduction to corporate research and investigation, both of which can help understand our targets and inform our campaign strategies.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Our targets’ interests, financial position, or internal organisation can be quite opaque, hidden behind technical terms or not publicly accessible.

This training session will look at how to ‘dig’ for more information, whether through Freedom of Information requests or using the site company house and at how to analyse planning documents and balance sheets. This session is meant as an introduction to corporate research and investigation, both of which can help understand our targets and inform our campaign strategies.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

With election season coming, it’s important for all members to feel confident in putting forward Living Rent’s demands. In this session, we will focus specifically on the demands laid out by Living Rent’s manifesto and practice how to make the case for them, with examples from your branch or area, along with the national case for public housing, rent controls, or landlord accountability. Speaking to politicians and candidates can feel daunting, that is until you have your union by your side!

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Tenants often are not registered to vote, whether that’s because they move between homes often or because they don’t believe that politics actually makes a difference for them. As a union aiming to empower tenants and working class residents to have their voices heard, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to vote.

This training will look at practical steps to run registration drives in your area, which can be a great way to ensure that people have a voice in the Scottish elections and engage with your neighbours. We will run through the protocol to do this effectively and in line with GDPR guidance.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Come see how to navigate the planning system in Scotland and when can communities have their say on what gets built in their neighbourhood, from the initial development plans to specific planning applications. However, with power ultimately in the hands of the Scottish Ministers, there is only so far that legal avenues can take us.

This session aims to look at the detail of the planning process, and hear from campaigners and Living Rent members who have successfully overturned a planning application.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

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This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Our housing reflects countless struggles and attempts by tenants to make way for better housing, whether through rent strikes, organising committees, or fights to keep public control over homes and for new social housing to be genuinely affordable. Tenant organising has always shaped both public and social housing.

Come to this session to learn about Scotland’s inspiring history of tenants’ struggle against sustained efforts to undermine tenants’ voices. The session will examine how the union’s everyday fights both connect to and diverge from this history and explore together how we can be inspired by the past as we fight for the future.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Whilst legal protection exists to ensure that no one suffers from discrimination, landlords routinely ignore them. In this session, we will cover the content of the Equality Act in Scotland and how to use it to further pressure landlords into providing adequate housing and conditions for tenants.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Are you a tenant in the Partick area? Join the Partick branch of Living Rent. We are an independent tenants’ union with no ties to any political parties. We have members from across the private rented sector and social housing.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve been organising around issues of urban development, gentrification, hygiene, vermin, and housing quality in Partick. Our campaigns have always focused on the fight to make landlords accountable to their tenants. Find out more about what we got up to last year in our Partick Power newsletter.

In December, we launched as an official branch of Living Rent. Our membership is rapidly growing, and we’re carrying this momentum into an ambitious set of campaigns for the coming year. Get involved if you want to challenge rent rises, fight for rent controls, participate in community-led urban planning, fight gentrification, and help maintain decent quality housing in the area.

We meet every second week. For more details please contact our local organiser Nick Durie ([email protected]) who will put you in touch with a branch officer.

Writing a press release is a crucial part of preparing for a direct action, bringing a broader spotlight to the action’s demands and greater pressure on your target.

Come to this session to practice how to write press releases that are clear, catch the eye of journalists and support your campaign goals. This session will also cover broader points around how to develop effective relationships with the press and present how press work is structured within Living Rent.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

As we build our power, fight for the issues that we care about and make real what previously was seen as impossible, we can forget how to take care of ourselves and burn-out. Here, we will look at both individual self-care practices as well as collective ones, in order to build the long-term movement that we need to achieve the future we deserve.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

With 75% of all dwellings in Scotland having some degree of disrepair, and  57% of homes below the EPC energy C rating, repairs and efficiency are two of Scottish tenants’ deepest concerns. Come learn about how to effectively pressure your landlord to adhere to the repairing and tolerable standards, and, as many repairs issues are shared by your neighbours, fight for better standards in your block.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Our union is only as strong as its membership. That’s why each of our campaigns and activities also aim to recruit new members. This session aims to support all Living Rent members to feel confident with recruiting other members, and is especially aimed at membership officers responsible for recruitment in their branches. It will be very hands-on, come ready to role-play!

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

This session will provide a time to practice writing together for Living Rent’s website - as a blogpost - but also for different audiences. Indeed, friendly news sources will sometimes ask Living Rent to put forward our own pieces and it’s important that many people feel able to put forward our visions and words to wider audiences.

This session will be very practice-based, come with an idea or a story that you would like to write about for Living Rent and get support from fellow members drafting a structure and effectively putting it forward.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Registered social landlords are unrepentantly pursuing tenants for rent, refusing to carry out repairs and raising the rent year after year. Councils and housing associations ignore, delay and undermine their tenants, in the face of this, how can tenants win better housing?

In this training, you will learn to work through three common issues that tenants in social and public housing face and how to fight back and win improvements to your and your neighbours' housing with the support of other members.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Our union is only as strong as its membership. That’s why each of our campaigns and activities also aim to recruit new members. This session aims to support all Living Rent members to feel confident with recruiting other members, and is especially aimed at membership officers responsible for recruitment in their branches. It will be very hands-on, come ready to role-play!

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Creating engaging flyers or catchy posters is often a first step for a local branch. Come to this training to see how to use easily accessible software to create flyers and posters that represent Living Rent and speak to your branch members’ issue, in order to support your outreach activities and effectively portray your branch’s activities.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

During an action, following in a journalist request or just preparing a speech can feel overwhelming. Come to this training to practice how to speak to journalists and to a group, by preparing your communications and by getting tips from each other. This training aims to build each other’s confidence so more and more members can feel able to speak up and as such to ensure that our voices, experiences and needs are heard.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.

Registered social landlords are unrepentantly pursuing tenants for rent, refusing to carry out repairs and raising the rent year after year. Councils and housing associations ignore, delay and undermine their tenants, in the face of this, how can tenants win better housing?

In this training, you will learn to work through three common issues that tenants in social and public housing face and how to fight back and win improvements to your and your neighbours' housing with the support of other members.

Come to the meeting a few minutes early, so we can start sharp!

Sign up below to receive the zoom link (check your spam)

This training is part of Living Rent’s training program supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation.