How does anyone make sense of Britain’s rental crisis? Let’s start with Ruby’s story – and that of her landlord, which is inseparable from her own though they’ve never met. Ruby was born in Kent, where her mother had been sent to live as a teenager while under the care of a local authority in London, ‘a forgotten girl’, as Ruby called her,...
Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis by Nick Bano. Housing injustice, unlike most of the social ills afflicting our atomised society, has the potential to unite and radicalise. Having knocked on doors for Acorn in Tottenham, I’ve seen how swiftly conversations about damp, mould, Section 21 notices and rent rises can swell into anger at the status quo, and pleasure that someone, anyone, is trying to do something about it.