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Category: UK
ACORN is featured in Jack Shenker’s review of Against Landlords
ACORN is featured in Jack Shenker’s review of Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis by Nick Bano, published in the latest issue of the London Review of Books. The article doesn’t just name-check ACORN, it highlights the heart of our work: turning frustration, fear, and isolation into collective action and power.
Shenker writes about Ruby, a tenant trapped in the UK’s cruel private rental system, living with chronic illness in a mold-infested HMO owned by a retired doctor profiting from public housing benefit. After falling from the security of a corporate London job and grappling with the trauma of housing instability in her early adulthood, Ruby found herself once again on the brink of eviction. Stripped of income, health, and options, what little recourse did she have in the face of a system stacked against her? Organizing with ACORN. From role-playing landlord confrontations at a workshop, to speaking at our TSB bank occupation in Tottenham, Ruby found her voice and a community that fights back.
The review also acknowledges the legacy we’re building on: from Red Clydeside to the Stepney Tenants’ Defence League, ACORN, the London Renters Union, and Living Rent are organizing in a much harsher landscape, where rent strikes are criminalized and tenant protections are eroded. But as the review rightly points out, our confrontational actions, occupying banks, storming letting agents, and naming and shaming exploitative landlords shine a necessary light on the power imbalance at the heart of the housing crisis. For renters like Ruby, community unions like ACORN offer resistance need to combat the housing crisis’s in our communities .
Bano’s book and Shenker’s review both make one thing clear: landlordism in Britain has become a national industry, bolstered by MPs, corporations, even charities. But the fight is far from over. As Bano says, “The solutions are already in our neighborhoods.”
? Read the article: “Renters v. Rentiers” in the London Review of Books
? Read the book: Against Landlords by Nick Bano
? Join the fight: Your Local ACORN Branch
ACORN Brighton Wins Crackdown on Negligent Landlords, Cambridge and London Target Housing Injustice
After months of hard work, ACORN Brighton scored a major win when they secured a city-council backed crackdown on corrupt and negligent landlords, bringing relief to tenants across the city now, and for years to come! ACORN Cambridge and ACORN London teamed up to march directly on the offices of Places for People, who has been the source of over six years of serious housing issues and tenant suffering. This is direct action at work!
ACORN UK Celebrates 10 Years of Organizing at National Conference in Leeds, Marking Victories and Continuing Advocacy.
ACORN UK hosted their national UK conference in Leeds, with more than 200 ACORN delegates from more than 30 attendants across the UK in attendance! Members celebrated wins, including a recent action where four hundred members had successfully beaten back TSB bank requirements for mandatory rent increases, and ACORN UK’s ten year anniversary of collective organizing! Of course, the actions continued, with ACORN Bristol advocating for a member to be able to stay in their home after the city council rejected their right of succession. The good work continues!
ACORN Brighton Reopens Public Toilets, ACORN Oxford Wins Equitable Bussing Campaign
ACORN Brighton had a massive win with their successful ‘Save Our Toilets’ campaign, which reopened over 18 toilets in a public park. ACORN Oxford achieved a big first victory in their campaign for better and more equitable bussing in their city, mirroring the important transit work ACORN is doing in Cambridge.
ACORN Manchester Celebrates ‘Boot the Bailiffs’ Victory and Spreads the Word on Organizing Power
ACORN Manchester capitalized on their major “Boot the Bailiffs” win by using it to spread the word about the power of organizing with successful organizing campaign. ACORN Leeds continued their fight against Gloriavd HealthCare on behalf of immigrant workers.
ACORN Brighton: Standing Up for Tenant Rights
Tenants Daisy and Ramona found themselves in a challenging situation when their landlord imposed a massive 12% rent increase, exceeding the 5% maximum specified in their contract. Refusing to accept this unjust hike, they confronted the landlord and were shocked to receive a Section 21 “no-fault” eviction notice in response.
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ACORN Birmingham: Rally to Halt Tenant Eviction, Secures Housing Security for Struggling Family
In a powerful display of community support and activism, ACORN Birmingham successfully prevented the eviction of a struggling mother and her ten-year-old daughter in Quinton. The family had faced the threat of eviction due to rent arrears accumulated after a significant rent hike last April.
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ACORN UK : Bristol campaign against ‘bidding wars’ wins!
ACORN Bristol‘s ‘Ban the Bids’ campaign wins as big city letting agent pledges not to engage in ‘bidding wars.’
As reported last month, ACORN’s Bristol branch has been fighting against the practise of ‘bidding wars,’ where landlords and letting agents encourage would be renters to bid against each other over the advertised price.
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ACORN UK : People power keeps Coventry family in their home
Earlier this week, ACORN Coventry successfully resisted the eviction of our member Mandy and her family.
Their landlord, who owns over 40 properties in Coventry, issued a section 21 ‘no fault’ eviction notice so he can sell up.
Mandy repeatedly asked the landlord to delay the eviction until they could find a new home to rent or the council could provide them one. However, instead he refused to negotiate and chose to try and throw them out of their home, putting them at risk of homelessness.
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ACORN International’s global response to the COVID-19 Pandemic – Mumbai to British Columbia
At the outset of the now-ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, over a dozen chapters, branches, and affiliate organizations of ACORN International issued a global call for the social protection of low-income families and individuals.
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