NUS appeals action from student accommodation providers
National Union of Students demands action from all the private sector student accommodation providers, including the National Landlords Association and the Residential Landlords Association across UK. Speaking directly to the authorities who can make immediate changes locally for students.
NUS asks all providers to implement its five demands voluntarily to protect students during this difficult time. These are:
- Ensure all tenants and landlords have access, and implement, clear and holistic public health advice.
- Every landlord must offer students a no-penalty early release from tenancy contracts for the current and next academic year.
- End all evictions for all renters for the duration of the crisis.
- All renters who are financially impacted by COVID-19 must have their rents subsidised and significantly reduced or waived entirely for six months.
- Suspend all rent increases for the next 12 months.
It also aims to reach as many student accommodation providers as possible to remove housing anxieties for all students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It continues to look to the government to make enforcements in this area.
Eva Crossan Jory, NUS vice president for welfare said: ‘There is a crisis facing the millions of student renters in this country, as a result of Coronavirus, and we hope that all these landlords will step up to protect students and implement our asks.
‘They can act now and reassure their student tenants and send a message to future tenants about how they will be treated.
‘However, it will be essential that government steps up to ensure all student renters are fully protected during this crisis. Safe, secure and affordable accommodation at this time is not only a matter of social justice but an urgent matter of public health.’
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