Eviction: A Social History of Rent [Hardcover]

An alternative history of housing in post-war Britain – a cautionary tale of rent, precarity, and working-class resistance

Grounded in personal experience, Eviction uncovers a hidden history of housing injustice and working-class resistance in what has become a perennial battleground for social conflict in modern Britain.

In 2017, Jessica Field’s parents and more than a hundred of their neighbours received warning of imminent eviction. Their corporate landlord intended to demolish their affordable, privately rented homes to replace them with middle-class houses for sale. Led by the women of the estate, tenants launched an anti-eviction campaign to save their close-knit community from destruction.

The neighbourhood was the last remnant of a 1950s National Coal Board estate constructed to house local miners. When the coal industry declined in the 1970s, whole estates were auctioned off to speculators. Low-income tenants were at the mercy of global investors. Houses were left to rot. Rents soared. Tenants were exploited every step of the way. Yet time and again, tenant activists – especially women – fought back.

Eviction is a history of the British housing crisis in microcosm. This story of a community that suffered from terrible treatment at the hands of their landlord, as well as very bad conditions, is shocking. It is a story that must be told in order to prevent such exploitation from happening in the future. I hope many people in the housing world will read this book and take its lessons to heart. Brilliantly written, and told through the eyes of a resident, it is doubly powerful. This gripping book also highlights the particularly active role of women in housing and community issues.
—Anne Power, author of Cities For a Small Continent&ll!