Alt text image 1: A dark red background, a photograph from @abolish.rent of graffiti blended into it. The graffiti in full caps reads- no landlords, in red, no bosses, in white, no cops, in blue. Overlaid is 'Friday 23rd May 2025' in a linen colour between no landlords and no bosses. Also overlaid is 'From 6.30pm' in the same linen colour scheme between the no bosses and no cops. Text in the linen colour flows bellow the above, occuping the left hand half reads 'Book launch and conversation with author and LA Tenants Union co-founder Tracy Rosenthal, with Liverpool Residents Action, chaired by Abi O’Connor' Black Lodge Brewery, 3 Kings Dock Street, L1 8JU. Accessible event space In the remaining right hand space is the cover of a bright red book. In black text alignied and centred at the top is 'How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis'. And in the linen colour in full caps is the title each word a new line, ABOLISH RENT. A ball and chain leading to two house keys attached fills the top centre half of the book cover, a link in the chain is broken. Beneath it in the linen colour are the authors names in full caps. 'Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis'.

Alt text image 2: Contains the following text centred on a dark red background with linen coloured text. Free event, please join us on 23rd May, 6:30pm for 7pm start, accessible venue, Black Lodge Brewery, 3 Kings Dock Street, L1 8JU. We are excited to be in conversation with Tracy Rosenthal, author & co-founder of Los Angeles Tenants Union to launch and discuss their book Abolish Rent. Abolish Rent takes aim at one of the foremost engines of inequality and injustice. Rent drives millions into debt, despair, and onto the streets. The social cost of rent is too damn high. Written for anyone fed up with the permanent housing crisis, complicit politicians, and real estate greed, Abolish Rent dissects our housing system from the perspective of those it immiserates. Through unsparing analysis and striking stories of resistance, it shows us how tenants can, through organizing and collective action, harness our power and win the housing we deserve. From two co-founders of the largest tenants union in the country, this deeply reported account of the resurgent tenant movement centers poor and working-class people who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process. Authors Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis take us to trilingual strategy meetings, raucous marches against gentrification, and daring eviction defenses where immigrants put their lives on the line. These are the seeds of the revolutionary movement we need to make our housing, our cities, and the world our home. Alt text image 1: A dark red background, a photograph from @abolish.rent of graffiti blended into it. The graffiti in full caps reads- no landlords, in red, no bosses, in white, no cops, in blue. Overlaid is 'Friday 23rd May 2025' in a linen colour between no landlords and no bosses. Also overlaid is 'From 6.30pm' in the same linen colour scheme between the no bosses and no cops.

Free event, please join us on 23rd May, 6:30pm for 7pm start, accessible venue, Black Lodge Brewery, 3 Kings Dock Street, L1 8JU.

We are excited to be in conversation with Tracy Rosenthal, author & co-founder of Los Angeles Tenants Union to launch and discuss their book Abolish Rent.

Everything Abi said- following along with Nags Head tennants on instagram > www.instagram.com/nagsheadesta...

If we are going to agree that housing benefits are required to keep people in their homes and that these benefits must be linked to “real rents” then we must also surely agree that these costs must be capped and controlled. The RRB purports to offer solutions to this crisis, however we see nothing which will provide any better protection than the current system which allows only for rent increases within a tenancy to be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal and only when they are arguably inconsistent with market rents.

Without caps and controls on increases between tenancies, and with a fair rents system measured only against market rents, rather than against any fair and independently calculated metric, rents will continue to rise and the cost to ourselves, the public, along with it. The charity Shelter provided policy and international evidence on rent caps and controls during the last general election, why doesn’t the RRB include rent caps and controls? Rent caps and controls are essential to stabilise the cruel and unpredictable situation that people find themselves trapped in. Successive governments have consistently ignored campaigners and protected the profits of the landlord class for decades. What does that say about them?

A digitally drawn flag displaying "LRA" flys, between the flag pole and base of the flag, the handwritten "Liverpool Residents Action" fills the square void. In the middle of the image, the centred text reads. "Liverpool Residents Action is a grassroots organisation that aims to help and represent the interests of residents in the city with their housing needs.", new line, "Membership is free." new line. "To join, head to lraction.uk/join-LRA"

#RentCapsandControls

lraction.uk/rentcaps-and...

In the background a heatmap of England shows the percentage of homes covered by local housing allowances as of 2024. Across the centre in LRAction-purple on lavender padding, centred text reads, "On Rent Caps and Local Housing Allowance Freeze", across the bottom edge of the image a city scape of Liverpool, and digitally-handwritten text beneath reads in full caps "Liverpool Residents Action" in LRAction-purple. All images following this use white centred text on LRAction-purple.

We welcome the research from Crisis and Zoopla on the growing disparity between rents and the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) published this week. We too recognise, and personally experience, the panic felt amongst private sector tenants dealing with unaffordable rent hikes as the LHA rates are now frozen again from April 1st. We agree that the disparity between rents and the LHA amount is scandalous. It is clear that it is a huge factor in the increase in homelessness as private renters face eviction due to rent arrears as their rents raise way beyond wages, this is an issue that will not be addressed by the end of section 21 and is not addressed at all by the current iteration of the Renters Rights Bill (RRB).

We also agree that successive Governments’ negligence since the LHA calculation was slashed in 2011, from being aligned to the bottom 50% of rents to the bottom 30%, has contributed to the current situation. Only 2.7% of private rents across England are within LHA rates, and less than 5% in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). Politicians' decision to allow this disparity to increase, by freezing the LHA, and failing to consider the impact this is having and has had on renters and homelessness is a catastrophic failure. A solution to this crisis cannot be complete without the introduction of properly formulated rent caps and controls.

The ONS has confirmed that rents have increased by 8.1% in the year to January alone, outstripping inflation by 6 percentage points and 2.5% ahead of wage growth. We agree that this is unmanageable, and agree that a social housing program must be part of the solution. However we are certain that no discussion on homelessness, private renting or the financial crisis our country faces is complete without an urgent and robust discussion on rent caps and rent controls. It cannot be the case that renters and their supporters and representatives do the work of the private landlord class by lobbying for ever increasing amounts of public money to be handed to private landlords directly from the public purse and for the increases in these payments to be tied only to the rents landlords wish to charge and "market forces".

#RentCapsandControls

lraction.uk/rentcaps-and...

If the government really wanted to make ‘savings’ in their budget, then we suggest they look at the projected £70 billion that will be spent on local housing allowance between 2024-2029 which goes straight into the pockets of private landlords. We are years into a chronic housing shortage yet the government has made no attempt to address the fact that unaffordability underpins this crisis. Introducing rent controls, and investing in council housing, would not only save a significant amount of public money in the short and long term, more importantly it would improve the living standards of millions.

We are acutely aware that many of our members across the city will be paralysed with fear following the decisions announced this week. If you need us, please reach out, it’s up to us to continue to look after one another. Please also support movements such as Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and ensure your MP has heard your voice. For housing issues, please email us at casework@lraction.uk, detailing the broad nature of your issue and your contact details. We offer free casework for a range of issues including disrepair, threat of homelessness, discrimination or harassment from landlords/agents, observing at landlord inspections or council compliance visits, rent increases, deposit issues, eviction notices and support for holding landlords to account.

Introducing rent controls, and investing in council housing, would not only save a significant amount of public money in the short and long term, more importantly it would improve the living standards of millions.

Please also support movements such as @dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social

The Labour government is spending its time pandering to lobbyists and punishing those least able to advocate for themselves. If they continue down this path, they will be responsible for the death and despair that follows. The government’s own figures claim that 250,000 people, including 50,000 children will be pushed into poverty; figures from the Joseph Rowntree foundation argue this figure is closer to 400,000 people. If the government cared about inequality it would be implementing taxes on the wealthiest, who continue to extract unfathomable levels of wealth from our communities. A wealth tax of just 2% on assets over £10 million would raise £24 billion per year.

When this government claims it must cut welfare or social spending, it is not because of real financial necessity. It is because they prioritise the interests of the ruling class. These cuts are yet another redistribution of wealth upwards. This government seeks to weaken the social safety net so that workers are more dependent on their employers, less likely to organise, and more easily replaced.

The Labour government is spending its time pandering to lobbyists and punishing those least able to advocate for themselves.

A wealth tax of just 2% on assets over £10 million would raise £24 billion per year.

"Liverpool Residents Action response to Labour's announcement of welfare cuts" reads in white text on a solid LRAction purple background. The text is centre aligned in the middle of the image. A city scape of Liverpool is projected across the bottom, with "Liverpool Residents Action" digitally-written in full caps across the bottom edge. All following slides are white on purple text, center aligned in the middle of each image.

The current Labour government has made the indefensible choice to further worsen the lives of the most vulnerable. The planned cuts to Personal Independence Payments, Universal Credit and Carer’s Allowance are a disgrace to the people they are elected to serve. While it is increasingly clear that many MPs have no background in the labour and social movements that seek to empower people who the system fails, their offices will have heard in no uncertain terms the detrimental impact that austerity 2.0 will have on millions of people. The inhumanity of those who hold power in this country is in plain view for us all to see.

Liverpool Residents Action response to Labour's announcement of welfare cuts

The current Labour government has made the indefensible choice to further worsen the lives of the most vulnerable.

"Blue Labour is an effort at trying to construct an identity politics of our class as a subaltern class. It gains ground in elite circles because it has enough truthiness to them, even though the realities of class today are far different from their narrow imaginings." 🎯

Liverpool Residents Action is a grassroots organisation that aims to help and represent the interests of residents in the city with their housing needs. Membership is free. To join, head to lraction.uk/join-lra

It's hardly worth touching on the embarrassing point made about unions because we cannot believe Carden thinks any of his constituency would believe that anything other than Thatcher's government deliberately crushed the unions. Watch Strike: An Uncivil War for details of exactly how she did this, systematically, for years.

Carden got 86% of his constituency in 2017, 85% in 2019, then lost 8,500+ votes in 2024 and dropped to 71%. Still a huge majority and not an entirely reliable metric, but Walton was won over by an offer to improve material conditions, then a portion were lost by a move away from this.

These are the people you are letting down and need to win back, not a room full of billionaires in a men's club you've built for them.

Liverpool Residents Action is a grassroots organisation that aims to help and represent the interests of residents in the city with their housing needs. Membership is free. To join, head to lraction.uk/join-lra

BLUE LABOUR IS NOT THE ANSWER

1:1 image, light blue text in full caps centred on a dark blue background reads, "blue labour" on the first line, and on the final line, "is not the answer". The following images follow this theme with explanatory text in the alt.

PoliticsHome has recently featured Blue Labour, chaired by Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, who explains to them. “I'm not scared of the term Blue Labour.” He does not mind the term “socially conservative” either, he adds, because “progressive politics” has threatened communities. “It's challenged the value of long-standing institutions, from trade unions to churches.”

Carden risks being toppled by the left, not the right, in this city who are disappointed and angry to see a Labour MP, in what was previously the safest seat in the city, throw his constituency under the bus in this way. We know that identity politics is just a distraction tactic, so does Carden.

Division in this city comes from a politics of scarcity, people living in very deprived conditions, as they do in Walton. This is a direct consequence of the decisions made by consecutive governments,continued and unchallenged by this current Labour government.

BLUE LABOUR IS NOT THE ANSWER

Tuesday 28th January 2025

DoES Liverpool
1st Floor, The Tapestry
68-76 Kempston Street
Liverpool L3 8HL

7pm - 9pm

Look forward to seeing you all and making some decisions about where our capacity is best spent in the coming months! This is an accessible venue.

Meeting graphic, is 1:1 ratio, with a LRA logo in the top left quadrant, and website LRACTION.UK , depicts a tent, a high rise, and a house with yellow 'lights on' each. Text in alternating "LRA Purple" and black occupies the remaining three quadrants, reads:- [In full caps] Tuesday 28th January 2025 7PM - 9PM Liverpool Residents Action Fighting for housing rights and freedoms! Everyone Welcome (no cops, no bailiffs, no lanlords, no politicians, no bigots, no abusers nor their apologists) Does Liverpool, L3 8HL Accessible space, on street parking

Our next in-person meeting where we'll be discussing some of our up and coming plans including response to the Renter's (Reform) Rights Bill, some options for community engagement events and our recently established casework policies for those coming to us for help with housing issues.

Purple round background, with the capitals LRA in white, outlined in black at the top centre of the circle. A line drawn tent, highrise and home are depicted with lights on in the windows

We are Liverpool Residents' Action! 📢 A grassroots collective of Liverpool residents fighting for housing and related needs through direct action, political education & campaigning

lraction.uk/join-lra/