United Kingdom

How can housing help migrants integrate into communities?

Published in Wednesday July 4th, 2012 In In the media

July 3rd, 2012 The vast majority of housing organisations fail to realise the role they can play in community integration Recent discussion about migration has focused almost entirely on the numbers of people coming into the country, but debates about numbers don’t respond to the issues that emerged in the areas where migrants had gone […]

Tags ,

In the UK, housing crisis deepens

Published in Wednesday June 13th, 2012 In Opinion

June 12, 2012 by Mark Easton The desperate shortage of affordable homes in England appears to be worsening, following Tuesday’s publication of national housing statistics. The Homes and Communities Agency has announced that the number of “affordable housing starts” for 2011-2012 was just 15,698 – a 68% fall on the previous year. The Housing Minister […]

Tags ,

Athens 2004 Olympics: what happened after the athletes went home?

Published in Tuesday May 15th, 2012 In In the media

As the flame for the London Olympics is kindled in Greece, Helena Smith looks at the legacy of the 2004 Games In the soft Attic light, Athens’s Olympic sports complex does not look like such a bad place. Men and women jog gently under its great steel arches, athletes go in and out of its […]

Tags ,

Landlords ‘evicting tenants’ to make Olympic profit

Published in Tuesday May 8th, 2012 In In the media

Tenants in east London are being evicted from their homes as landlords attempt to cash in on the Olympics, BBC News has learned. The housing charity Shelter says it has seen more evidence of landlords acting unscrupulously and evicting people illegally. One estate agent said properties typically rented for £350 per week were being marketed […]

Tags ,

Violence as squatters evicted from £3m home

Published in Monday April 2nd, 2012 In In the media

April 1st, 2012 Around 20 officers from Avon and Somerset Police entered the Clifton Wood House in Bristol following reports of a late night party. They left the property at 5am but returned around two hours later with six riot vans as they stormed the 18th century mansion. Officers in full riot gear then carried […]

Olympic housing crunch: London landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists

Published in Friday February 3rd, 2012 In News

By Marian Smith, msnbc.com LONDON — Landlords in Britain’s capital are evicting tenants so they can cash in on this summer’s Olympic Games by charging tourists many times the usual rent. Homes in the east London boroughs where many events are to be held are fetching between five and 15 times their typical rates as […]

Tags ,

Communications reports are available for consultation

Published in Friday September 16th, 2011 In News

Read below the summaries of the communications sent by the Rapporteur to various countries from December 2010 to last May. To read the complete version of each communication, click on the summary title.

Tags , ,

Essex University releases a Guide to Legal Observing of Forced Evictions

Published in Monday August 29th, 2011 In News

The Essex Human Rights Clinic of the Essex University has recently released a Guide to Legal Observing of Forced Evictions.Bellow you can read the Introduction section and you can also download the document.

The Essex Human Rights Clinic, part of the Human Rights Centre and School of Law at the University of Essex, was established in 2009 to offer students the opportunity to gain valuable practical experience in promoting and protecting human rights. The Human Rights Clinic emphasises practice as a way of addressing complex human rights issues while meeting the needs and interests of real people.[…]

Evicting rioters’ families from their homes? There’s a horrible logic to it

Published in Tuesday August 16th, 2011 In News

Ponder, for a moment, the second-most unequal country in Europe. Its prime minister, who failed to win an outright majority, heads a government whose cabinet contains several millionaires, and embarks upon an ideologically driven economic policy against almost all international and professional advice. It has just faced its largest strikes for decades. Its lawmakers were recently found fiddling their mortgages en masse. Its press was caught phone tapping hundreds of private citizens and politicians, with little hindrance from the police.

PRESS RELEASE – UK urged to find negotiated settlement to eviction stand-off with 86 Irish Traveller families

Published in Friday August 5th, 2011 In News

GENEVA (5 August 2011) – Two UN human rights experts* in the field of housing and minority issues called on the United Kingdom Government to find a peaceful and appropriate solution, and adequate alternative housing for 86 Irish Traveller families faced with forced eviction from Dale Farm, Essex, before the end of August.

Tags , ,