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Living Rent
Scottish tenants' union From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Living Rent is a national tenants' union in Scotland. Originally established in 2014 as a campaign group urging the Scottish Government to implement rent controls,[3] it subsequently became a mass membership organisation of tenants aiming to "tackle the power imbalance between landlords and tenants" through collective action.[4]
Living Rent is affiliated to ACORN International[5][6] and is an associate member of the International Union of Tenants (IUT).[7]
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Structure
Living Rent is a democratic, members-led organisation. Members are organised in branches, typically at a neighbourhood level, each of which has a committee elected by local members.[5] There are multiple branches across Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as branches in Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, and Paisley.[8][9] Branches work together on national campaigns through the national forum.[5]
A national committee elected by members at its AGM is legally responsible for the organisation and its good governance.[5]
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History
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Campaign group
Living Rent was established in 2014 in response to the announcement of a series of Scottish Government consultations on housing and tenancy reform.[10] The campaign organisation was established by the Edinburgh Private Tenants Action Group, alongside activists from ACORN Scotland and the National Union of Students.[8][11] Living Rent's three key demands were for rent controls, the abolition of no-fault evictions and greater flexibility for tenants to end leases early.[12] The consultation received over 2,500 responses, with just under 2,000 of them having been organised by Living Rent accounting for three-quarters of all responses.[13]
By 2015, Living Rent had established a national board, links to other organisations and trade unions, and local groups across Scotland.[3] That year, the Sturgeon Government amended their plans for housing and tenancy reform, and launched their second consultation.[14] The second consultation received three times as many responses as the first one.[14] As a result of Living Rents' campaigning, the government amended proposals once more, and passed the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016, which banned some no-fault evictions.[8][11][15]
Tenants union
In 2016, Living Rent turned from a campaign group into a mass-membership tenants' union.[11] In October that year, Living Rent held its first AGM as a tenants' union, reporting a membership of over 100, as well as 2,600 associate members and support from Unite the Union, Unison and the National Union of Students.[16] By its second AGM in January 2018, its membership had doubled to over 200, allowing Living Rent to hire full-time staff to support its work in Glasgow and Edinburgh.[17] The union's membership subsequently grew to over 500 by the 2019 AGM[18] and over 1,200 by the 2020 AGM, with over 300 people joining during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]
In August 2021, Scottish Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie credited Living Rent with having "created the political space" for rent control proposals in the SNP-Green co-operation agreement, through which he became Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights later that month.[19]
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External links
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