A fight for the right to a safe home must also be a fight against discrimination.
As Shelter Cymru, we are campaigning to end housing discrimination. If we can end the unlawful practice of discrimination against people that prevents them having access to a place to call home, it will mean we have taken another step forward in our fight for home and solving the Welsh housing emergency.
Even before the COVID pandemic, around half of the Welsh population received some kind of benefit and around 700,000 people were living in poverty, including 3 in every 10 children. Unsurprisingly, as the effects of the pandemic hit, more people claimed benefits in Wales as incomes fell.
Despite this additional pressure falling upon so many people, we are still seeing instances of people being discriminated against when trying to secure somewhere to call home. Discrimination should never deny the right to a safe home.
Discrimination takes many forms from blatantly unlawful “No DSS” or ‘no Universal Credit’ adverts, to slightly more creative approaches, such as setting rents just over local housing allowance amounts or asking for multiple months’ rent in advance. This practice is pricing people out of somewhere to call home and adding additional strain to support services across Wales.
Other existing inequalities, include gender, race and disability make it disproportionately more difficult for people with protected characteristics to hold down a home. In Wales, in 2022 discrimination is just unacceptable, we all deserve access to safe and affordable homes.
If you believe no one should be denied a safe home because of who they are, take action here >