26,000 people are waiting for council housing in Leeds.
ACORN Yorkshire and the Humber region is demanding funding for affordable housing.
Many are sleeping on the streets, whilst house, holiday lets and second homes remain empty.
ACORN is demanding a 100% tax premium on these properties by July 31.
Eleesha, a media and communications representative for ACORN Leeds said, “We are hearing that people are having to go to London or Scotland for temporary accommodation, which is just unsustainable.”
“We also, on a local level have two campaigns that we are running that we think will address some of these issues for both social and private tenants.”
The organisation aims to reduce empty homes and improve accessibility to housing with a campaign surrounding “selective landlord licensing” which operates in Harehills and Beeston. The goal is to see this distributed throughout the wider Leeds area. This would ensure that “landlords would need a license to be able to rent out their homes to people. Their homes would have to be inspected and we will be able to hold them more accountable for their environmental standards.”
Councillor Barry Anderson, Chair of Leeds City Council Scrutiny Board, said that “we have a specific unit within the housing department that identifies where there are empty house. We also use an organisation called Green Doctors that go around and try and give advice on the best way of moving those empty houses on.”
There are many factors that have to be considered regarding housing funding. Anderson said, “the problem that the council face is that the price of council housing to buy back is very different in different parts of the city.”
The councillor said that Leeds City Council and housing associations must overcome issues surrounding the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis and funding in order to move forward.
