You know how renting your home can be soul-crushingly awful? Like when you complain to your landlord that your home is actually uninhabitable and the council agrees and instead of fixing the problem the landlord revenge evicts you?
Or how you've got a 1 in 2 chance of experiencing difficulty getting back your deposit once you hand in your notice? Or how you have to endure open viewings and butter-up already well-buttered estate agents in order to improve your chances of finding a home because the whole process is so ridiculously competitive? Well, it could be about to get a whole lot worse.
Generation Rent, one of the UK's most influential and important campaign groups for renters, has had its funding cut. It has approximately 30 days before its funding dries up completely and has to close its doors.
Generation Rent has been campaigning for affordable rents, increased accountability of landlords and letting agents and increased security for private tenants since the start of last year. They've already succeeded in helping make revenge evictions illegal. They are campaigning for rent control and their work is far from done.
Private renting is growing - it has doubled in the last ten years and if you're under 35, you're more likely than not to be a renter. An accountable, professional rental sector is important. That's why groups like Generation Rent are vital.
Without Generation Rent, there will be less pressure on Government to increase regulation, raise standards and improve affordability in the rental sector. There will less advocacy for tenants in the media and there will be one fewer voice for private tenants.
They are now asking for our help and have launched a crowdfunding appeal. This push follows an unexpected funding cut which jeopardises the organisation's future beyond September.
If you're one of the 3.9 million private renters in the UK, or you don't rent but care about the rights of people that do to have a secure, safe and affordable place to live, you can help Generation Rent continue their work by making a donation.
The campaign aims to raise £60,000 by 31 August on crowdfunding platform People's Republic. It is currently at just over £7,000 (as of midday July 30th). If it fails to do so Generation Rent will have to lay off all staff and will cease to function.
Betsy Dillner, Director of Generation Rent, said:
This cut has come as a shock and our young campaign is now facing oblivion. Without us, private renters will no longer have a national voice in the media and political debate, and their prospect of a rented sector that works for them will ebb away. The housing crisis is not going away anytime soon, but with the generosity of the public, neither will Generation Rent.