16th
Dec 2021
The director of the Generation Rent campaign group is calling on the government to introduce as quickly as possible “a winter truce” banning evictions over the forthcoming months.
The director Baroness Alicia Kennedy, says: “No evictions should take place during winter, given the risk to vulnerable people of being made homeless amid freezing conditions. Last winter’s truce brought England and Wales into line with other European countries and this should be put in place every year.
“This year a winter truce is even more urgent due to the heightened level of infections, the uncertainties posed by the Omicron variant, and the prospect of people who have already lost income since March 2020 are facing the loss of their home at what should be the happiest time of the year.”
Generation Rent insists that following the eviction ban ending in October that numbers of evictions since then is virtually the same as before Covid.
Referring to its analysis of Ministry of Justice statistics, the group says that during July to September private tenants’ evictions reached 87 per cent of the level in the corresponding period in 2019.
Generation Rent claims that if evictions stay at the same levels: “then every working day will see 83 households evicted across all tenures. This includes 28 renter households evicted per day through the Section 21 process, which the landlord does not need a reason to use and the tenant cannot appeal.”
The group wants the government to introduce an ‘eviction treaty’ on bailiff enforced evictions the same as last year when it was introduced from December 11th 2020 to put evictions on hold because of the explosion of Covid -19 cases, and councils unable to cope with the increased strain on their workforce and services.
Richard Merrick of PIMS,said: “Our taxes pay for Generation Rent and if they really want to help tenants then perhaps they may consider setting aside a budget to pay landlords who are owed rental arrears, to stop ‘rogue’ tenants deliberately taking advantage of the pandemic and failing to cough up rent in spite of having ‘ample’ funds.”
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