Have you or your organisation signed this letter? Please ask your MP, Councillors, organisation and any famous people you know to sign this letter. It’s really easy – just go to the google doc and add a name here.

Letter to the Guardian

You will be aware that the government has again extended the eviction ban on private and social renter evictions until May 2021. However, government loopholes are allowing evictions to go ahead, such as if the landlord has proven tenants’ anti-social behaviour or at least 6 months’ rent arrears. This is despite the housing secretary Robert Jenrick’s promise that “no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home”.

This is impacting over 750,000 households throughout England who are in arrears and in a state of constant fear of becoming homeless due to the government’s short-term approach and shifting regulations in dealing with what is a national housing crisis. 

• The pandemic has had the greatest impact on the lives of working-class people, including key workers, disabled people, BAME households and those in precarious employment, who have suffered disproportionately in terms of poor health, poor housing, and extreme hardship. Even landlords’ groups such as the National Residential Landlords Association are calling on the government to offer greater support to both landlords and tenants.

Numerous renters’ and housing groups are calling for no evictions during the pandemic and for financial support to help renters pay off arrears. We are therefore calling on Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to implement the following recommendations:

·   Extend a full moratorium (ban) on evictions until March 2022.

·   Write off arrears accrued during the pandemic until March 2022.

·   Central government to develop an emergency financial package for tenants and landlords to stop evictions.

As Shelter points out, “Massive rent debt will make it impossible for many to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of the pandemic”. We call on the Prime Minister, Cabinet and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to step in now and support legislation to ensure no-one loses their home or incurs rent debt due to the Coronavirus crisis.

Yours sincerely, 

John McDonnell MP, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington and former Shadow Chancellor

Diane Abbott MP, Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987

Ken Loach, Film Director

Homes for All Manifesto for London Mayoral and GLA elections  

1. Gentrification is the biggest problem facing Londoners. The Mayor and GLA must lead the fight against gentrification and social cleansing.  
2. The Mayor and GLA must lead the fight for the eviction ban to be maintained until march 2022, with write-off of arrears accrued during the pandemic until March 2022; and Central government to develop an emergency financial package for tenants and landlords to stop evictions.  
3. No more funding of estate demolitions. Invest in improvements instead.  
4. The Mayor to demand adequate fire safety funding from government including cladding replacement and leaseholder protections.  
5. The Mayor’s housing programme should be 100% council rent with no rent-rigging and no so-called affordable rent homes.  
6. All private developments to include a minimum of 50% council rent housing or equivalent  
7. Conversion of all Mayor-funded affordable rent and Mayor’s rent homes back to Social rent.  
8. The Mayor to lead and support community campaigns to demand adequate council rent housing funding from government, at grant rates that avoid sales of public land, or building unaffordable homes on public land.   
9. The Mayor to speak out and oppose the government’s Planning White Paper proposals  
10. The Mayor should revisit the London Plan to ensure that developers build adequate numbers of family sized homes.  
11. The Mayor must identify and bring back into use all long term empty homes in Greater London.   
12. All mixed tenure housing schemes to be pepper-potted. No more GLA funding for tenure-segregated schemes.  

Template Letter to MPS

I am writing to ask if you will support the Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by MP John McDonnell to be published on the members website on Tuesday 13^th April. It is:

That this House calls on the Government to allocate time on the floor of the House for a debate on the potential merits of extending the moratorium on evictions in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and further calls on the Government to write off all rent arrears accrued during the covid-19 outbreak until the end of March 2022 or later.

We also ask if you would sign a letter from the national housing campaign Home for All to the Guardian making the same demand – you just need to click this link and sign or we can add you if you can let us know the name, title and organisation you would like to use,

Many thanks

Name

Address

NEXT GENERAL MEETING SATURDAY 10th APRIL

H4A zoom meeting Saturday 10th April 11am

Topic: Homes 4 All General Meeting – followed by Filling Empty Homes
Organising Meeting

Time: Apr 10, 2021 11:00 AM London

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 826 2248 9588

Agenda
Evictions campaign and Early Day Motion
Empty Homes Day of Action 17th April – stay on zoom to join organising meeting

Manifesto & Hustings.

Council Rents & benefit Cap

AOB

H4A zoom meeting Saturday 10th April 11am

Topic: Homes 4 All General Meeting – followed by Filling Empty Homes
Organising Meeting

Time: Apr 10, 2021 11:00 AM London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82622489588

Meeting ID: 826 2248 9588

Agenda
Evictions campaign and Early Day Motion
Empty Homes Day of Action 17th April – stay on zoom to join organising meeting
AOB