BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: What’s Changed for Home Renters?
Eviction: A Social History of Rent By Jessica Field
Published by Verso, 2026, RRP £12.99 at Bookbuster
REVIEW BY TIM BARTON
A friend came into Bookbuster the other day. She had had several ‘no fault’ evictions over the last few years. She was looking for a room, nothing more, but couldn’t find anything under £600 a month. For a room. Fifteen years ago you could get a two-bed flat for that.
Recent changes to tenants’ rights are, sadly, too little. No real effort has been made to cap or reduce rents, or to reintroduce tribunals. Legal powers are not dictated by fairness or justice, but dictated from the top, and the rich and powerful are in many cases landlords. A fifth of MPs (and Lords) are landlords, including 44 Labour MPs. Change requires mass solidarity, something the English are no longer much good at. Nationally, a third of us are in rental accommodation, a figure only marginally lower for Hastings where 30% of us are: so in theory we have some power if we united.
IN HASTINGS THE LANDLORD USUALLY HAS HIS WAY
One of the areas Jessica is especially good on is the way that housing estates that were mostly rental had a sense of community, and in how that has changed, and on how those of us renting outside such estates are in a precarious position, more or less constantly moving and thus not really experiencing the kind of community solidarity that could be rallied to oppose eviction. This situation is made worse by property developers and landlords subscribing to a ‘buy low, sell high’ profiteering mentality. Many evictions are preceded by rent hikes, aimed not at getting more money from a sitting tenant, but as a first move to lever people out of their own accord, with the aim of selling, or refurbishing and renting out again at much higher rates. ‘Robbery without violence’, and in the words of the NCB, ‘increase in rent will induce the mine worker to leave the house. If at the end of the three months he has not left the house he is served with a Notice to Quit’. In essence this tactic is still rife in Hastings: ‘the landlord usually has his way in the end’.
Sadly though, even popular and united opposition is no guarantee of successful resistance. Jessica Field’s book, Eviction, gives a detailed account of the history of rent, both private and public sector, since 1945. The trigger for her investigation is her family’s experience of eviction and of activism and campaigning against eviction in Leeds. The estate they lived in was in Oulton, and is both disparagingly and, for some, affectionately known as ‘Cardboard City’. This is because it was a large pre-fab project, using concrete slabs. The estate was originally built for local miners and their families, and they had neither a private landlord nor were they council houses. This is one of the interesting aspects of the Leeds experience, as compared to the majority of ‘home county’ situations: the housing was government owned and the landlord was the National Coal Board.
By the time of Jessica’s family’s ‘no fault’ eviction notice, in 2017, things had changed radically, and NCB were long gone. The whole estate was up for redevelopment, is now mostly empty and boarded up, the tenants long gone. No redevelopment has begun yet. There was still a real community, and Jessica’s mother was instrumental in the fight, forming ‘Save Our Homes LS26’ (LS26 is the Oulton postcode). In fact the important role of women in such campaigns is highlighted throughout the book. The fight got national media attention, though ultimately to no avail. An important aspect of eviction is discussed, not just with regard to Leeds, but ubiquitously: and that is the effect precarity and the constant threat of eviction has on mental health. I have long advocated a Universal Basic Income, and reform of the bureaucratically fascist DWP, both of which along with lower rents and more security for tenants would likely halve the mental health crisis and, as a consequence, more than pay for itself.
A FECKLESS UNDERCLASS OF THE POOR POPULATION
However, it was a great campaign and is covered in some detail here – recommended reading if you need to fight an eviction notice, not just as a cautionary tale but constructively too. Two sections are especially important, ‘eviction as violence’, and ‘silencing resistance’. Jessica also gives insight into other campaigns, such as Focus E15 in Newham, and New Era in Hoxton. She also talks, for example, about ACORN, a renters’ union also active here in Hastings; Sisters Uncut; and Hands Off Our Homes.
The book gives a great description of the negative changes wrought to rental housing, mainly from the time of Thatcherism onwards, and is interesting too on how our view of the past, from 1945 onwards is often seen through rose-tinted spectacles, as we were then too seen as a ‘feckless underclass of the poor population’. As Jessica says, ‘Our private renting experiences were not unique – not then, in 2004; not 150 years ago; not now. Nor were they particularly terrible when compared to that of many other evicted families over the past century and a half. But frequency shouldn’t mean acceptance, because it was difficult – in more ways than I’m prepared to spill onto these pages.’
ACORN Hastings can be contacted via ACORNHastings on both Facebook and Twitter
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply