A public meeting in New Wortley on Tuesday will discuss what the new Housing Act and fresh benefit cuts mean for local people and their community.
Organised by Leeds Hands Off Our Homes Group, the meeting is being held at New Wortley Community Centre and starts at 7.30pm.
The Housing Act has been subject to a barrage of criticisms from campaigners, who argue it will lead to ‘social cleansing’ due to the forced sale of social housing and the extension of right-to-buy.
The Act forces councils to sell off high value vacant local authority properties to fund the extension of the government’s right-to-buy scheme to housing association tenants.
A spokesman for Leeds Hands Off Our Homes said:
“The new Housing and Planning Act is a direct assault on council housing and other social housing, and all the people who live in the sector or are desperately waiting to be housed. It forces councils to sell off stock to pay for subsidies for people who are well-off enough to buy their own homes.
“Leeds is set to lose up to 1,000 council homes per year for the next few years – at a time when street homelessness has doubled and there are 25,000 households on the waiting list.
“We need to spread the word and we need lots more people involved in every community, to make sure no-one is evicted and that we come together to demand more not less genuinely affordable, secure and decent social housing for everyone who needs it.”
Leeds Hands off our Homes campaigns against privatisation of social housing and welfare cuts.
Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis said the Housing and Planning Act would help people who aspire to own their own home.
“It will increase housing supply alongside home ownership building on the biggest affordable house building program since the 1970s,” he said.
More details about the bill can be found here.