{"id":5691,"date":"2015-09-14T17:45:57","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T16:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5691"},"modified":"2015-09-15T10:05:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T09:05:29","slug":"affordable-homes-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5691","title":{"rendered":"Affordable homes for all"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Speaking on the housing crisis today at the TUC congress, Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner hailed the housing campaigners and tenants who have been fighting back against evictions and the demolition of their housing estates.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bDespite housing being a fundamental human right, we have a government that has seemingly taken delight in making the crisis ever deeper,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is just one reason why we welcome the election of Jeremy Corbyn and his belief that everybody should have a home they can afford to live in,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Steve added.<\/p>\n

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He highlighted how \u00e2\u20ac\u015bvanishingly few areas\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 are now affordable and pointed to the TUC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s research which found that in close to 90 per cent of areas, house prices were five times higher than local salaries.<\/p>\n

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Taking aim at the private rented accommodation market, Steve pointed to the fact that private renters in Britain pay the highest rents in Europe, spending almost half their take home pay on rent.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd without action it will get worse,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Steve said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bRents are forecast to rise by more than twice as much as pay over the next 25 years. For those who want to own a home it is fast becoming an impossible dream.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Turner criticised the lowering of the benefit cap, which, he said will place the south of England and our inner cities out of bounds for unemployed workers and their families to live.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNone of this has to happen,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Steve noted.<\/p>\n

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He called for a housing policy that returns to being about providing homes and not \u00e2\u20ac\u015binvestment opportunities\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can build a million new homes,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he argued, while also calling for the end of automatic right to buy and introducing rent controls and tenant security.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bInvesting in housing grows our economy, creates jobs and apprenticeships, and importantly, homes for all.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking on the housing crisis today at the TUC congress, Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner hailed the housing campaigners and tenants who have been fighting back against evictions and the demolition of their housing estates.   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bDespite housing being a fundamental human right, we have a government that has seemingly taken delight in making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[109,392],"wps_subtitle":"Unite AGS calls for bold housing policy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5708,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5691\/revisions\/5708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}