Housing campaign group SHAC has officially launched its comprehensive Blueprint to establish a democratic, member-led National Housing Union for All Tenants and Residents. The initiative aims to unite renters, leaseholders, and shared owners into a singular, mass-scale trade union-style organisation capable of combating the UK’s systemic housing crisis. 

It will work alongside the many specialist or localised housing campaign groups plus tenants and residents associations that are already in existence.

SHAC activists will present the Blueprint at the upcoming Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Brighton, running from 13th to 16th September. 

SHAC will have a stall at the conference centre and is hosting a fringe meeting at 2.45pm on Tuesday 15th September, with guest speakers. The platform will include:

• Fran Heathcote, General Secretary of the PCS public services union to discuss their housing survey; 
• Adam Taylor, the Fire Brigade Union’s Health & Safety lead on safety post Grenfell; and
• A speaker from Unite the Union on their newly launched Housing Campaigns Unit.

SHAC will formally invite all trade unions to provide vital partnership and seed funding to get this new, independent housing union off the ground. SHAC Secretary and Cofounder, Suzanne Muna, said:

“For too long, tenants and residents across the UK have been atomised and forced to fend for themselves against a broken housing system that prioritises commercial interests over human need. 

“By forming a national union, we are creating a democratic, member-led force to permanently rewrite the balance of power between landlords and residents. We need the scale, strength, and solidarity of the trade union movement to help us build a body that ensures no tenant or resident stands alone.”  

A Four-Nation Emergency

The launch comes amid a severely intensifying, multi-tenure housing emergency across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Official metrics highlight a system operating under unprecedented structural strain:

• England: A decade-high 1.34 million households sit on social housing waiting lists, while a record 131,140 households trap individuals in temporary accommodation.
• Northern Ireland: Social housing applications have passed a historic milestone of 50,381 households, alongside a staggering 79% five-year surge in temporary placement usage.
• Scotland: Local authority waiting lists hold 180,074 applications, marking the highest volume recorded since 2013.
• Wales: Over 94,000 households are on social waiting lists, representing 1 in every 14 households across the nation.

Compounding these shortages, rent inflation has broken historical records. Concurrently, a social rent formula of CPI+1% forces costs to consistently outpace basic inflation for low-income families. In the ownership sector, approximately five million leaseholders across England and Wales face steep, unregulated service charges and unresolved building safety disputes.

The Blueprint: Five Key Pillars

SHAC argues that existing redress mechanisms are individualised, reactive, and fragmented. Landlords and corporate developers wield superior lobbying power, while community support services have been systematically slashed.

To alter this power imbalance, the National Housing Union will operate across five core tasks:

1. Individual Casework & Legal Advocacy: Triage and expert representation delivered by directly employed staff and trained peer advocates.
2. Collective Organising: Building community power to address localized or thematic concerns, such as energy-efficiency retrofitting.
3. Press Work: Changing the public narrative to challenge negative stereotypes surrounding tenants and residents.
4. Political Influence: Systematically engaging politicians at all constitutional levels to push for robust, legislative housing justice.
5. Training & Education: Empowering residents with tools to fight for their interests while training policy makers to improve engagement.

Why Housing is a Trade Union Issue

SHAC’s recent Housing Crisis in the Workplace Impact Survey exposed a devastating overlap between home and working lives. Findings revealed that 76% of workers stated housing problems negatively impacted their attendance or performance, 45% took sickness leave due to housing stress, and 60% noted that surging housing costs directly contributed to household debt.

SHAC Secretary and Cofounder, Suzanne Muna, said:

“Pay rises won by trade union activists are largely siphoned off to landlords, and worker absences are frequently driven by the damp, mould, and psychological strain of unhealthy homes.

“The involvement of the trade union movement is the only viable pathway to creating a housing union of sufficient scale to combat corporate landlordism. This is a symbiotic relationship; a stable economy is impossible in the context of an unmitigated housing crisis.”

An Inclusive, Broad Structure

Unlike previous ‘top-down’ consulting initiatives funded by governments or charities, the National Housing Union will be entirely member-led and grounded in grass-roots self-organisation. Membership will be open to all, spanning council and housing association tenants, private renters, shared owners, leaseholders, and residents in non-traditional dwellings like caravans and boats.

The union will utilize a flattest-possible branch structure based on locations, specific landlords, or tenures. 

Crucially, it will not seek to displace the excellent work of local Tenants and Residents Associations (TRAs) or existing campaign groups; instead, it will offer formal affiliation, allowing local groups to tap into the national union’s legal, financial, and promotional resources.

The Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC) is a member-led campaign group coordinating tenants, residents, workers, and activists across the housing sector to campaign for affordable, safe, and secure homes. The blueprint is the product of a seven-month participative process involving hundreds of activists, steering groups, and volunteers, culminating in a four-phase strategic operational plan to launch the union.