ICERAS

Tuesday, 30 June 2020 7:16 AM 0

By Maurice Wren

Evictions are a highly sensitive topic in England, where we have a dysfunctional housing sector and a landlord-tenant legal framework that does little to protect people from arbitrary actions. Nevertheless, when lockdown measures were implemented in March this year, one thing was clear – evicting people during a global pandemic was unsafe. It put them at risk of contracting covid, and it increased the risk of transmission in our communities.

In March, the government announced a three month pause on evictions for private and social tenants, and a parallel three month pause on evictions for those who had just been granted refugee status and were still living in asylum accommodation. These policies were to be reviewed in June. The priority was the health and safety of the public. Everyone was told they must ‘stay home and save lives’. readmore