The IRSP in Belfast have this week launched our, “Drop The Rents” campaign.
The campaign that will first be targetting Beechmount, will be rolled out across other areas in due course.
So far we have a number of tenants who are facing financial crisis as private landlords are asking for rents far higher than their housing benefit. This affects single parents; one of the most vulnerable sections in our society.
We are asking that Landlords and Letting agencies drop their rents to the LHA level; the local housing benefit level recieved by families.
Local IRSP representative for Beechmount Dan Ó Murchú has said, “These vulture landlords and letting agencies are preying on our most vulnerable. Some of these single parents are having to pay up to £250 a month extra on top of their housing benefit, forcing these families to not eat, not have warm water, not have new clothes or get themselves into debt to simply make rent every month. On top of this already immoral practice, rent increases have been recently reported, which makes no sense seeings as landlords are paying historical low levels of interest rates on mortgages. It is vulture capitalism.”
Landlords and letting agencies with interests in Beechmount will be contacted over the coming weeks and our intentions and demands will be made very clear to them.
In the event that these landlords & letting agencies ignore us, their only choice will be to evict, in which case they will have to face and confront the local organised community.
The IRSP have proven consistently across the city that we wont tolerate evictions or threats of evictions, and we are willing and able to resist and stop attempts to evict families in our areas.
We are the only defence these vulnerable families and our communities have. We wont allow this barbaric profiteering to continue unopposed.
