HOUSING EMERGENCY - TIME FOR AN ALTERNATIVE

That this House notes rising homeless applications, overcrowding, repossessions, waiting lists and the threat to tenants' security, rents and housing benefit; believes it is time for an alternative to provide desperately needed homes for rent that are decent, secure, genuinely affordable and accountably run; welcomes the Housing Emergency coalition of tenants, trade unions, hon. Members, councillors, campaigners, faith groups and others; endorses their call for all who want sustainable, mixed communities across the UK to resist and campaign against cuts in housing benefit, call on landlords not to evict tenants who fall behind with their rent as a result of the new cuts in housing benefit, reject huge council rent rises driven by government debt and inflation formula, oppose the use of so-called `affordable (up to 80 per cent. of market) rent' and reject scapegoating; acknowledges that the shortage of housing is a result of underinvestment and failure to build and is not caused by existing or would-be tenants, in work or not, of whatever race or religion; and calls on the Government to defend security of tenure for existing and future tenants, regulate to control private sector rents and bring forward a programme of investment in new and improved council and other house building with secure tenancies and genuinely affordable rents.