Living Rent Edinburgh has had huge successes this year, let's see this year in review.
We are now one step closer to winning rent controls. On Thursday 28th November, The Scottish Government voted to take forward the housing bill which includes better rights for tenants and rent controls. 300 of us rallied at parliament to tell MSPs 'we demand rent controls'. This a huge step, but landlords and developers will try to water down rent controls in the next two stages of the Housing Bill - It's our responsibility to stop this. We are fighting to make sure that rent controls apply between tenancies; that social landlords can buy back stock to increase social housing; that there is improved security around evictions; increased quality with clear timelines for repairs and regulation powers around damp and mould; improvements in the justice system such as penalities for landlors and legal right to withold rents; and creating a sense of home by giving tenants the right to repair and have pets. Read more about our campaign 'A New Deal for Tenants'.
We got Edinburgh City Council say yes to Rent Controls if they are implemented nationally. We have since inspired members in Glasgow and Aberdeen to do the same. See Eilidh, our City Chair give her deputation at Full Council here.
This year we saw the results of our 'Empty Homes' campaign, where we demanded that Edinburgh City Council repair and fill their void properties and backed Unite's CEC demands to bring the repairs team back 'in-house' using direct labour. On November 13th 2024, the council's Housing Homelessness and Fairwork Committee reported on reduction of void properties. See section 4.2: “To date, the number of void Council properties has reduced by over 500, bringing in c£2.5m per year in rental income for reinvestment in the Council’s housing service; and preventative services are projected to prevent c400 homelessness events this year, avoiding c£10m in temporary accommodation costs.” Our campaign has not only secured forever homes for residents of Edinburgh, but has saved the council millions of pounds. Where politicians fail us, we have our union.
We're winning the fight against short term lets through our campaign Homes Not Holiday Lets. In April 2024, there were 3,350 less holiday lets. One of our members who lives on the Royal Mile after having only 1 long term neighbour now has 12! This summer we got 550 people to back our consultation response for better enforcement to and to stop exemption periods. Short term let landlords, are not happy with the legislation and are doing everything they can to stop it. They may have deep pockets to sue the council, but thousands of us need affordable housing in our city, and we won't stop until we get it. If you think there is a short term let in your stair or street that hasn't got planning permission or is operating without a licence get in touch. If you want to object to one in your area use our app.
As a result of our Tourist Tax for Council Flats campaign, we got Edinburgh City Council to put £150m towards building council housing in Edinburgh, by using £5m each year from a new victory levy. In Edinburgh we have a high number of people living in temporary accommodation, hotels and B&Bs; 23,000 households waiting on social housing and an expensive private rental sectore that has seen rents increase by 104% since 2010. At the same time, a large number of jobs in the visitor sector do not pay high enough for people to qualify for affordable 'midmarket' rent.
During the first half of the year we did a banner drop in town, got confirmation from the Scottish Government that they money could be spent on housing. In summer we spoke to trade unions, local councillors and ex-council leader Cammy Day about benefits of spending money on housing. In August, during the Fringe we held an action outside Edinburgh City Council and spoke to the public about housing and secured a commitment from Edinburgh City Council!
In December we submitted our response to Edinburgh City Council's 'Visitor Levy' consultation, which made clear the links between tourism, low paid work, high rents, homelessness and the lack of social housing. We submitted it with 600 endorsements and backed by organisations such as Shelter Scotland; EIS Edinburgh; Edinburgh Trade Union Council; Unite Hospitality, Retired branch and City of Edinburgh Council. We are fighting to secure more money for housing and public services such as public toilets and parks. Edinburgh is not a tourist attraction, it's our home, and we deserve to afford to live and work here. Read more here.
We have had multiple member defence wins. These include Cassidy and Stuart and Rory who won compensation, repairs and rent rebates from DJ Alexander. Other successes include contesting rent hikes, such as Paul and Sesilia who by using rent adjudication reduced their rent increase 10% to 3.5%. We hold member defence meetings twice a month in different areas of the city, come along!
Members in Leith, have once again put Living Rent Leith on the map through the ‘Dalton Scrapyard Campaign’ to push for more social and affordable housing, and against the development of expensive student accommodation and build to rent. We held local politicians to account at a public meeting where we made the case for prioritising affordable housing for students and local residents, over developers profits.
In Lochend we continued to push the council around their commitment to put empty council homes back into use and launched our campaign to ‘Insulate Lochend Fairly’. Where our key slogan has been ‘climate justice for working class communities’. Every month we have spoken to councillors to ensure that every council tenant gets the essential repairs to stop damp and mould, private tenants are not evicted and that owner-occupiers have fairer financing so they aren't crippled by thousands of pounds in debt and are able to vote yes to the scheme. We have secured more drop in sessions, a review on the financing and a policy which means private tenants can remain as social tenants when threatened with homelessness. You can read about our wins this year and watch videos on social media and listen to Laura and Fiona discuss the campaign here.
In addition, we are making sure that funding from the scheme will be used to 'Give Lochend Safe Roads' sign the petition here.
In Newington/Meadows in the first half of the year pioneered the ‘People’s Rent Freeze’ campaign at the end of the 3% rent cap in April and developed a tool which would help tenants report their rent hike and email their MSP to show the impact increasing rents has on our everyday lives. The image below shows members protesting outside a local letting agency 'At Home in Edinburgh'. We asked them to be fair and issue rent increase no higher than 6%, they responded saying 'We Represent Landlords', despite it being our rents that pay their wages. At Living Rent, we make it clear thar we represent tenants. So far 230+ tenants have used our app to fight their rent hike.
In Gorgie Dalry members secured a massive win against spiralling rents. In a block of 125 households, 85 are owned by one private development company. The over 50 tenants affected their neighbours united to fight back against rent increases of 30% - 78% from their landlord MCR. A large number of residents unionised in their block, went door to door, hosted block meetings and BBQs and held firm in their negotiations with their landlord. This resulted in much lower rent increases being re-noticed, for example Ikenna and Amrita’s rent was decreased from 34% to 8% and Victor and Calin’s from 67% to 7.1%. On average saving each household £4793, which for 50 flats is £239,650 a year kept in tenants pockets! Read more here.
In Granton members across 6 blocks organised to fight for repairs and better security from their housing C~urb. After waiting 3 years for repairs, multiple vehicle thefts, draughty/noisy windows, damp, mould, and ceiling leaks and a 10% rent increase this year, tenants were fed up. They went to the offices to demand repairs to their car park shutters, replacement of their faulty windows, and better security on site. Once tenants across 6 blocks joined Living Rent and united as one voice, they won big! C~urb is now fixing the shutters, replacing all windows and doors, extra magna locks are being installed, and there's two weekly site visits by the estate management officer for tenants to talk face to face about their issues. You can read more here.
In Niddrie, our members who are tenants of Edinburgh City Counci and refugees from Syria have been suffering racist harassment for the past two years. They are fighting for their right to live in peace and dignity for themselves and their children. After feeling ignored by Police Scotland and Edinburgh City council we demonstrated at the North East Locality offices joined by RMT, Trade unions in Communities and Stand up to Racism. We have successfully secured safe temporary accommodation and the whole family will move into permanent accommodation in January 2025.
هذا النصر هو تذكير قوي بأنه عندما نقف معا في تضامن، يمكننا التغلب حتى على اسوأ الصراعات وأكثرها عنفاً وعنصرية أحياناً . إنها شهادة على قوة وصبر وشجاعة الأسرة التي رفضت الإستسلام للعنصرية ، وشهاده على المجتمع الذي تجمع حولها بدعم وحب لا يتزعزع
Translation: This victory is a powerful reminder that when we stand together in solidarity, we can overcome even the worst, sometimes the most violent and racist conflicts. It is a testament to the strength, patience and courage of the family that refused to surrender to racism, and its testimony to the society that gathered around it with unwavering support and love
In Oxgangs, our member was able to secure a permanent social tenancy for her family after receiving an eviction notice from her private landlord who wanted to sell as a result of mixed tenure repairs, Edinburgh City Council would only buy the house empty. After months of campaigning alongside Lochend members, we not only secured a new tenancy but changed policy city wide.
But that's not all... We have also hosted trainings on campaign stratgey, how to do member defence, how to resist evictions. We had annual big meetings in June where we elected local members to take key roles in leading their local branches and picked our local campaigns. At our Annual General meeting in Glasgow (see pictures above) we shared lessons of our wins with branches across the country and elected our National Chair Aditi Jehangir (member in Leith), National Secretary Ruariadh Dempster (member in Leith/Newhaven) and Elise Corry (member in Newington) to our National Committee.
To make sure we people know about Living Rent our members and staff do weekly outreach at events, stalls across the city and our staff members are out on the doors every night speaking to people about their housing and community issues. This year we have amped up our communications and social media: We have been on the radio and local, national and international press. Members have been sharing stories of our campaigns and how they got involved on EHFM's local radio show.
We have organised fundraisers such as: pub quizzes, Feminist Punk and Reggae nights at Leith Depot, A 'Christmas Ceilidh for Palestine' which raised over £500 each for Living Rent Edinburgh and our Palestinian ACORN International affliate Popular Struggle. In Lochend, fundraised money was used to put onevents at Easter and Christmas for the kids!
2024 has been the biggest year yet for Living Rent Edinburgh, but in 2025 there is more to come. It is amazing what we can achieve when we stand together! Living Rent is led and funded by and for us. Landlords, businesses and politicians may be powerful, but being part of Living Rent gives us power to make and influence decisions over our lives, homes and communities.
If you do one thing in 2025, get active in your union.
