The Rent Emergency with Vicky Spratt
Lezing / Debat
On Thursday 14 September we welcome award-winning journalist Vicky Spratt, author of ‘Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain’s Housing Emergency’. She offers critical insight into twenty-first century Britain, where millions are trying to build lives in privately rented accommodation, which creates profit for landlords but not safe and stable homes for tenants, and offers important lessons regarding the Dutch housing crisis.
Past decades have seen the gap between the poorest and wealthiest grow into a chasm. The stripping of social safety nets has paved the way for the stripping of public assets for profit. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Britain’s housing market. The commodification and wholesale financialisation of housing has had a profound global impact on access to secure and truly affordable housing, an issue all too visible in the Netherlands as well.
Spratt traces decades of bad decisions to show how and why the British dream of homeownership has withered and the safety net of social housing has unravelled. She has spent years talking with those on the frontline all around the country and illuminates the ways this national emergency cuts across generations, class and education and is devastating our health, destroying communities and transforming the social, economic and political landscape beyond recognition. Also, she shows that radical action is possible, and that there are real steps we can take to give everyone the chance of a good home.