Labour’s national action day in Hamilton to end housing crisis

Members took Labour’s message on the housing crisis to the people of Hamilton on Saturday as part of a national day of action.

We had dozens of members out on the doorstep campaigning for an end to the country’s housing crisis where: thousands of families are stuck on housing waiting lists and living in sub-standard accommodation; soaring private rents are forcing more and more people (including children) into poverty; owning your own home is increasingly out of reach; and homelessness is shaming our country.

Campaign Team

The Campaign Team

The Scale of the problem

According to Shelter and Scottish Government statistics the situation is rather shocking:

  • Almost 1 in 10 households in Scotland are currently waiting for social housing.
  • 38% of social housing falls beneath the Scottish Housing Quality Standards.
  • Rents in some parts of Scotland have increased by over 100% in the past decade despite stagnating wages.
  • Only just over a quarter of people under 34 own their own home in Scotland – down from half in 1999.
  • There were over 34,000 homeless applications in Scotland in 2016/17.

What Labour will do

The country urgently needs a new approach to housing as under the past decade of Tory and SNP rule the situation has only worsened. Labour has the new transformative approach that is needed to help solve the housing crisis and we are campaigning to bring about the change that is so urgently needed. 

Labour will:

  • Invest in a massive council house building programme & improve current social housing stock so it meets the Scottish Housing Quality Standards.
  • Introduce a Mary Barbour Law to control rents and subject rent rises to an affordability index.
  • Ensure all private rented housing meets the same high Scottish Housing Quality Standards as social housing and enhance tenants’ rights to take action if their housing is substandard.
  • Use compulsory purchase of unused developers’ land to enable more affordable homes to be built.
  • Develop a National Homelessness Strategy.

Houses should be homes for the many, and everyone in our society deserves a safe, secure, habitable and affordable home – a home should be a fundamental human right.

Only the Labour Party has the political will and the transformational policies to tackle the housing crisis, so please support us in our homes for all campaign by spreading the word, getting involved and voting Labour.

Posted by HLSLabour

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