Leading housing and poverty organisations have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to push through legislation that would prevent hundreds of renters from being evicted a week.
The Big Issue has joined almost 30 organisations including Shelter and tenant union Acorn to write to the prime minister demanding answers on why the government has failed to move the Renters Reform Bill forward in parliament before the summer recess, which will set it back precious months during the cost of living crisis.
They say the slow progress of the bill is in “stark contrast” to the urgent response to protect mortgage holders when interest rates spiked after Liz Truss’s disastrous “mini budget” last October.
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The letter comes a day after new government figures show homelessness in England had reached the highest point since new records began in 2018, and there were more households living in temporary accommodation since those records began in 1998.
The bill would abolish Section 21 so-called ‘no-fault’ evictions, which are among the leading causes of homelessness in Britain, yet the government is taking a “lackadaisical attitude” to address the crisis, says the coalition of leading charities and pro-tenant groups.
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