https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2874-6763
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Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought under the spotlight home’s severe inadequacies, which take a particular intensity in the various unregulated, insecure rental housing markets across the globe. It is now timely to deliberate what it takes for a rented property to be made home, and in that debate tenants’ voices should be heard. Taking the UK as a case-study and drawing on data collected through an online qualitative questionnaire, the paper focuses on a group of tenants theorised as ‘everyday activists’ to address the empirical question of what they demand from the government for the sector to improve. Considering participants’ legitimising narratives and assertions for self-representation in policy construction, the paper then proposes a reading of the demands made through the ‘Right to Home’, a concept carefully grounded in Henri Lefebvre’s Right to the City. The Right to Home calls for home-ing and democratising current de-radicalised understandings of the right to housing in order to craft more transformative futures.
Acknowledgment
I thank the 60 respondents who kindly typed hundreds of words in an unfriendly questionnaire, giving me rich data. My thanks also go to the first three peer reviewers who fiercely rejected a previous submission giving me thus a chance to reflect; the Urban Studies’ Monday workshop (University of Glasgow) where colleagues offered advice and encouragement; and to the editor and the new three peer reviewers for constructive comments. Finally, I thank Professor Kenneth Gibb, the Director of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), for backing this project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Rights to adequate standard of living, including housing, are recognised by 171 parties through the ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (notable exception US bar New York City). A general right to adequate housing is included in Constitution in Belgium, Peru, Portugal, Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay. State responsibility to ensure an adequate housing for all is included in Constitution in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey. Unrelatedly, several countries have legal provisions for housing homeless people in temporary or permanent housing by local authorities (France, Germany, Hungary, New York City, Poland, UK).
2 All bar one supporting the tenant union movement, they refrained from organised action because of: landlord retaliation (n = 3); employment retaliation (n = 1); illness (n = 1); no time (n = 2); ideological distance (n = 1); waste of time (n = 1); three have not specified.
3 Boltanski and Thévenot (Citation1999 p.368) discuss three more orders of worth in which people ground their justification (‘Inspiration’, related to the worlds of arts, religions, creativity; ‘Renown’, applied to the world of fame and public recognition; and ‘Industry’). These are not exhaustive, the authors suggesting that ‘green worth’ and ‘communicative worth’ could be added while other orders of worth (‘familiarity’ and ‘love’) exist beyond the need of justification.
4 r32/female/18-34yo/single/Brighton/’just about getting by’
5 r41/female/18-34yo/couple/Manchester/’doing alright’
6 r58/male/35-44yo/single/Glasgow/’comfortable’
7 r4/female/18-34yo/couple/Bristol/’finding it very difficult’
9 r25/male/18-34yo/single/Glasgow/’doing alright’
10 r23/female/45-54/single/Edinburgh/’doing alright’
11 r44/female/18-34/single/Sheffield/’doing alright’
12 r9/male/18-34yo/single/Glasgow/’doing alright’
15 13 organisations were mentioned: Acorn; Axe the Housing Act; Defend Council Housing; Eviction Resistance; Generation Rent; Greater Manchester Tenants Union; Living Rent; London Renter’s Union; Peterborough Tenants Union; Private Tenants Forum; Solidarity Federation; Tenants Union; Tenants Voice Group. Six participants have never heard of any.
16 r2/female/18-34yo/Cambridge/couple/’just about getting by’
17 r58/male/35-44yo/single/Glasgow/’comfortable’
18 r54/female/18-34yo/couple/Manchester/’doing alright’