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'Fascinating ... Tenants should be compulsory reading for every politician' - PANDORA SYKES 'Excellent' - NOVARA MEDIA 'Important heartbreaking and shocking ... this is a vital read.' THE TIMES ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 THE TIMES, DAZED, FINANCIAL TIMES, METRO, EVENING STANDARD, REFINERY29, COSMOPOLITAN In twenty-first-century Britain, unsafe homes are a matter of life and death. Award-winning journalist Vicky Spratt traces decades of bad decisions to show how the British dream of secure housing for all has withered. This fierce and moving account tells the stories of those on the frontline, illuminating the ways this national emergency cuts across the country, where the safety net of social housing has unravelled in exchange for profit, and communities have been devastated beyond recognition. Everybody deserves the chance of a safe and stable home, and this urgent, ground-breaking book leads the way.
Were our young adults mis-sold a future?
In a time of increasing social and economic inequality, this book illustrates the precarity experienced by millennials facing both rising rents and wage stagnation. Featuring the voices of those with lived experience of precarity in north-east London, MacNeil Taylor focuses on intimacy, reproduction and emotional labour. The book widens readers’ understanding of a middle-class ‘generation rent’ beyond those locked out of anticipated home ownership by considering both social and private renters. Situated in a feminist and queer theoretical framework, the book reveals the crucial role of British policy-making on housing, welfare, and immigration in exacerbating inter- and intra-generational inequality.
Housing means prosperity and security for some; poverty, precarity and sickness for others. More people live in private rented accommodation than ever before, and rents rise without apparent reason. Homes are smaller every year, and nearly 20 per cent of tenants live in hazardous conditions. Homelessness is at a new high. Yet the government's only solution is to promote homeownership. Against Landlords shows that this crisis is not the product of happenstance or political incompetence. Government policy has intentionally split British citizens into homeowners and renters, two classes set on very different financial paths. In the UK, one out of every twenty-one adults is a landlord, and it is...
‘If Dolly Alderton, Glennon Doyle and Elizabeth Day had a love child, this is the writer they’d produce.’ Laura Jane Williams, author and journalist Stylist’s Must Read Book for 2022 Evening Standard’s Faces to Watch in 2022 Do you have a story that you are scared to tell? A story that you’ve spent your life trying to escape. I’m going to tell you mine. One day, in the summer of 2008, I was travelling back to London when I received a phone call that suddenly changed everything. I was told my boyfriend Richard was in hospital. He died seven days later. I spent most of my twenties pretending this never happened. I was trapped within my own silence, left alone to absorb the discom...
Available open access under CC-BY-NC license. Homelessness is unequivocally devastating. In the UK, people affected by homelessness are ten times more likely to die than their peers in the general population, yet we still miss important opportunities to adequately address the issue. The Centre for Homelessness Impact brings together this urgent book gathering the insights and experiences of leaders in government, academia and the third sector to present new evidence-based strategies to end homelessness. Demonstrating why and how a new movement is needed that embraces data and evidence as integral to ending homelessness effectively, this book provides crucial methods to underpin future policy, practice and funding decisions.
Caribbean Women’s Migration: Windrush Era Housing Experiences and Aspirations is a qualitative case-study analysis of eight London-based women. The main purpose of the research was to document the housing histories of each subject over half a century since their arrival and subsequent settlement in the United Kingdom. The study highlights several themes, including: • the exploration of Caribbean women’s migration literature during the Windrush period (1948–1970); • racial discrimination as it relates to Caribbean housing access; • continued patterns of black and ethnic minority concentration and segregation in inner city metropolitan areas. Caribbean Windrush women and men have s...
The story of a personal housing crisis that led to a discovery of the true value of home 'You will marvel at the beauty of this book' George Monbiot 'Incredibly moving' Raynor Winn Aged thirty-one, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart. Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own. With the freedom to write, surf and make music, Catrina rebuilds the shed and, piece by piece, her own sense of self. This is the story of a personal housing crisis and a country-wide one, grappling with class, economics, mental health and nature.
One man's fatigue with 9-to-5 led to a five-month journey around the edge of Britain by bike--here are his adventures What would happen if you were cycling to the office and just kept on pedaling? Needing a change, Mike Carter did just that. Following the Thames to the sea he embarked on an epic 5,000 mile ride around the entire British coastline--the equivalent of London to Calcutta. He encountered drunken priests, drag queens, and gnome sanctuaries. He met fellow travelers and people building for a different type of future. He also found a spirit of unbelievable kindness and generosity that convinced him that Britain is anything but broken. This is the inspiring and very funny tale of the five months Mike spent cycling the byways of his nation and rediscovering a level of happiness he thought he'd lost forever.
In highly unequal Britain, poverty and social exclusion continue to dominate the lives of users of social work and social care services. At the same time, years of austerity combined with welfare reform have changed the context in which services are delivered in a society roiled by Brexit, Covid, Black Lives Matter and women rallying under the banner, “Me‐too”. This fourth edition lays out the ways and means for practitioners to tackle the deprivation and destitution of service users. Fully revised and expanded, it introduces new material that tracks changes and developments in policy and practice. Statutes, benefit rules and relevant research are discussed as part of the necessary kno...