Across Scotland, but particularly in Edinburgh and the Highlands, more and more housing is being used as holiday accommodation for growing numbers of tourists. Due to the housing crisis, Living Rent has long-held that these properties should first and foremost be long-term affordable homes rather than holiday lets. Continue reading

In September 2019, Serco’s Home Office contract to house asylum seekers came to an end, in part as a result of the pressure exerted by public campaigning led by a coalition of refugee and asylum seeker advocacy groups, of which Living Rent was part. Mears Group secured the tender for the new contract and, despite mass public outrage at Serco’s handling of the situation, still failed to find a solution to house the 300 tenants under threat, enabling Serco to carry out evictions.  As Living Rent had established in 2018 when this issue first arose, members of Living Rent Glasgow were committed to resisting this policy of forced destitution, and we launched a summer offensive campaign of direct action to defend our neighbours and communities.This fight continues, led by the No Eviction network, see here.   Continue reading