About the Book
'Fascinating ... Tenants should be compulsory reading for every politician' - PANDORA SYKES
'Excellent' - NOVARA MEDIA
'Important heartbreaking and shocking ... this is a vital read.' THE TIMES
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 THE TIMES, DAZED, FINANCIAL TIMES, METRO, EVENING STANDARD, REFINERY29, COSMOPOLITAN
In twenty-first-century Britain, unsafe homes are a matter of life and death.
Award-winning journalist Vicky Spratt traces decades of bad decisions to show how the British dream of secure housing for all has withered. This fierce and moving account tells the stories of those on the frontline, illuminating the ways this national emergency cuts across the country, where the safety net of social housing has unravelled in exchange for profit, and communities have been devastated beyond recognition.
Everybody deserves the chance of a safe and stable home, and this urgent, ground-breaking book leads the way.
About the Author :
Vicky Spratt is an award-winning journalist whose work regularly shapes public policy. Her 2016 campaign 'Make Renting Fair' led to letting fees in England and Wales being banned, and she has spoken at political conferences, all-party parliamentary groups, and panels across the country on the issue of housing. Currently the i Paper's Housing Correspondent, she has appeared on BBC News, Newsnight, Woman's Hour and NTS Radio. In 2020, she was nominated as Journalist of the Year at the Drum Awards for Online Media, and in 2021 her reporting on Britain's housing emergency saw her shortlisted for a British Journalism Award.
Review :
So important
A must-read that explores the housing crisis and its devastating impact on our health, communities and political landscape.
A major new book on the history and politics of renting
There is nobody better placed to write a book that tells the stories of 'Britain's housing shame'
Fascinating, incendiary, rigorously well-researched. Tenants should be compulsory reading for every politician
It is impossible to read this book without becoming almost incapacitated with rage. This astute analysis examines the toxic lottery of Britain's housing crisis,layingbare our state's lack of fitness for purposeand the devastating outcomes of having no fixed abode
An astonishing feat of journalism, storytelling and compassion. I thought I knew about Britain's housing crisis - I did not. ... The system is designed so that the people who rely on it the most feel disempowered - Vicky's journalism is single-handedly changing that.
An important book by a journalist who has done so much to shine a light on (and change) Britain's broken housing sector
Open-minded and formidably informed, Spratt is a compelling narrator. Her stories of people wrenched from their homes by so-called no-fault evictions are startling and infuriating ... Like baring your bank account to be probed by a landlord's algorithm, the book is an experience so bracing it forces you to step back, look at the whole wretched system and think: "Why do we put up with this?"
Vicky Spratt is one of the best equipped people to wade into this country's housing crisis ... [Her book's] radical plan for rectifying a broken system will leave you feeling hopeful for the future.
The housing crisis, for so long barely registered by the political class, is beginning to be told by those at the hard end of it. Tenants describes in grim detail just how bad things really are in the UK ... It's long overdue [and] really worth your time. Vicky Spratt is an expert on the housing crisis [and] a brilliant journalist who's great on the data ... some of the anecdotes from her book are terrifying - I really recommend it.
A copy should be handed to the "people who make decisions about policy" and to anyone who thinks that young people can't buy homes as they "don't work hard enough" - just read this.
Politicians would do well to read "Tenants", in order to understand the world lived in by so many voters. Victoria Spratt is doing an excellent job of explaining the realities of the private rented sector and the housing crisis in general. [This] isn't just an authentic book, it isn't just an accurate book, it's that rarest of things - a timely book that tells the reality of renting right now and it doesn't disappoint.
Vicky Spratt's excoriating Tenants shows how Generation Rent is being let down, and reminds us that the power dynamic between renters and their landlords was not always so skewed. Open-minded and formidably informed, Spratt is a compelling narrator, charting the way that governments since the 1980s absolved themselves of responsibility for housing and stripped back protections for renters. [Tenants] is an experience so bracing it forces you to step back, look at the whole wretched system and think: "Why do we put up with this?" That should have politicians feeling rather scared.
Important
Leading Journalist Vicky Spratt's important new book [powerfully] blends an overview of political failure with the personal experiences of those going through eviction.
Spratt not only provides an overview and analysis of Britain's housing history, welfare state and the plethora of issues renters are facing today, she gives solutions - readers are urged to think big, think radically and act fast.
Tenants is as much an astute political and social analysis as it is a moving, radical call to arms. ... You'll come away from this book seething, but stay armed with Spratt's clear view of how we solve this crisis
Vicky Spratt reveals how our dysfunctional housing system is causing dire consequences for people drawing on personal experiences from across the country, [and] calls for a radical reimagination of the housing system.
Vicky Spratt's ferocious debut Tenants is a comprehensive account of a dysfunctional system, in which constant precarity has become the norm for millions across Britain. ... relentlessly clear-sighted ... rigorous as well as deeply empathetic
"I really haven't a clue how to set about the job." Harold Macmillan committed those words to his diary in 1951, shortly after Winston Churchill asked him to sort out Britain's housing crisis. Macmillan lacked the counsel of Vicky Spratt.
Reading this drove me into a fury
Densely researched and makes plain how paper thin is the divide between the cheaper end of renting and being thrown out on to the street ... Argues convincingly that investing in more social housing would benefit everyone, not just those who live in it.
An urgent and necessary exploration of the housing crisis from one of Britain's leading journalists
Vicky Spratt has written the essential guide to understanding Britain's housing crisis. Anyone who has ever questioned the process that transformed our homes into speculative financial assets needs to read this book and then send a copy to their MP.
The national need for living space is desperate - as illustrated in Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain's Housing Emergency by the journalist Vicky Spratt. Show[ing how] the country is blighted by landlordism, homelessness and Thatcher's legacy, [Tenants reveals] the human cost of a genuinely kafka-esque bureaucratic system.
Vicky Spratt's shocking and incisive indictment of private renting in Britain describes how functional and productive lives unravel as people lose their homes, sense of self and feeling of belonging in the world. Packed with powerful narratives but also a number of policy alternatives, [Tenants] is based on myriad human stories showing home as a central aspect of people's lives and cornerstone of trust in society and its institutions. The case studies are shocking and sobering .. [but] the shifting nature of the discourse around the housing crisis is significant as they herald a real possibility of change.
A thorough and devastating analysis of Britain's current housing crisis.
Illuminating and emotive - [Tenants is] a rallying cry and a must read
Searing and passionate, Spratt's essential volume places first hand testimony front and centre in a devastating enquiry into the state of rented accommodation in modern Britain and how decades of bad decisions have left huge numbers of tenants extremely vulnerable.
An important examination of how the UK has found itself in such a bad housing crisis that one third of young people today will be renting privately "from cradle to grave". Vicky Spratt is the housing correspondent of the i newspaper and the founder of the Make Renting Fair campaign. She explains how governments since the 1980s have steadily moved away from providing affordable rental homes for people while stripping back most protections for tenants. The case studies of renters in the private sector whose lives are derailed after losing a secure home are heartbreaking and shocking. Whether you are a tenant or a landlord, or indeed a government minister, this is a vital read.
Tenants charts the diabolical state of housing in Britain, written by the i's brilliant housing correspondent, Vicky Spratt. Tenants doesn't hit you round the head with a gazillion dispassionately-listed facts and figures, nor is it full of unnecessarily complicated housing jargon - instead, it invites you into the world of Britain's renters, painting a vivid picture of their plight in the process. Using their stories as starting points, Spratt carefully untangles the thorny mess of the housing crisis, explaining how we got here, who exactly is impacted and how we can build a fairer society with shelter for all.
One of the most important books on the Housing Crisis to come out in the past year - authoritative, well researched and speaking truth to power. We can't praise this book enough.
Victoria Spratt is lucid [and] humane about our complex and deep rotted problems, without becoming cynical about the possibilities for change. A very moving book about the true meaning of sanctuary.
