Addressing the annual Congress in Liverpool, Jane Jones – Usdaw President said: “This country's housing system is in a state of disrepair. The appalling truth is that many workers have no prospect of finding an affordable, secure and good quality place to live. Instead, they face a market where the only certainty is ever increasing costs.
 
“In the private rental sector, tenants are expected to jump through a dehumanising series of hoops, all to live in unaffordable, unsuitable, and unsafe housing. Soaring rents are forcing key workers, including those in the private sector, such as shopworkers and delivery drivers, out of the communities in which they work.
 
“As it stands, the crisis will only deepen, with rising interest rates and demand outstripping supply year after year. Yet much of the Tories' solution, these so-called affordable homes, are nothing of the sort. 80% of an extraordinary and unaffordable rent is still an extraordinary and unaffordable rent, especially if you’re in low-paid or insecure work.
 
“This is all entirely avoidable. The housing crisis is being driven by the Tory Government's policy decisions. Report after report shows that the solution to the housing crisis is to build more homes for social rent. More homes on a scale which can only be delivered by central Government.
 
“Housing is simply too important to leave to the free market and hope for the best. It has far-reaching consequences to every aspect of workers' lives, from their health to their finances and their ability to work. We urgently need to move away from the broken status quo, where people are having to hand over a massive chunk of their wages each month to pay off their landlord's mortgage.
 
“The Government must accept its responsibility, to ensure workers have access to genuinely affordable homes. The fact is, every real solution to the housing crisis involves building more, high-quality, affordable, social housing. Secure tenancies, in a reasonably priced, quality controlled home, can provide the stability that workers need.”
 
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with over 350,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion