This is a rent emergency.
Tenants can no longer live at the mercy of landlords who do not have their best interests at heart.
We call on you to join the fight for rent controls, the fight for controls for short term lets, the fight for the building of public housing on vacant land, the fight for tenants rights.
The pandemic has exacerbated the fault lines that already existed within our housing system.
This is a rent emergency.
Sign our petition and get involved here.
Rents in Lothian have increased by 45.9% since 2010 whilst wages have stagnated or fallen in real terms. As over a quarter of the city’s residents are tenants, this has resulted in a widespread precarious and uncertain living environment. It is clear we need action now.
Sky-high rent has become impossible for many to afford. This has led the number of tenants living in poverty within the city to increase threefold over the last decade. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 22% of private rented sector tenants are in extreme fuel poverty and one in three of the city’s households living in poverty mentioned high housing costs as the main pressure on their income, compared with one in eight households in poverty across Scotland. Furthermore, homelessness applications to local authorities are increasing across Scotland, rising by 4% between 2019 and 2020.
It is clear that Edinburgh council needs to take action now.
The situation has been exacerbated by the repeated lockdowns that have been put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has acted as a stress test, revealing and amplifying existing problems. Combined with the impending wave of evictions, the scale of the crisis for renters in Edinburgh constitutes nothing less than a rent emergency.
Edinburgh Council has failed the city’s tenants. It is time it stepped up.
We are calling on the Council to commit to championing tenants right and declare a rent emergency.
Get involved with the campaign here! or add your signature below.