A recent visit to Berlin has given me much cause to reflect on the thorny topic of how to win better housing for everyone. I have been part of the London Renters Union for 5 years and while little in housing has improved in that time, we have always been able to comfort ourselves with the idea that if we can organise more people we’ll get there eventually. To go to Berlin is to encounter a city that has organised more people for better housing. The Deutsche Wohnen Expropriation campaign recently called a city-level referendum on taking back into public ownership 240,000 flats owned by big landlords. Amazingly, after much organising that involved many people who had never before campaigned on housing, they won the referendum.
Unfortunately…[full article here]