{"id":1277,"date":"2020-06-19T09:15:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T09:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2020-06-20T11:07:54","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T11:07:54","slug":"cancel-the-rent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/06\/19\/cancel-the-rent\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancel the Rent<\/q>"},"content":{"rendered":"

A contributed report from your socially distanced subtext<\/cite> correspondent<\/p>\n

Student members of ACORN, the tenants and community union, put up a banner saying cancel the rent<\/q> above the University underpass, and cancel the rent<\/q> and housing is health<\/q> posters onto white boards across campus on Monday 25 May, as part of the current student rent strike on campus. In order to comply with lockdown regulations, the exercise involved a very small number of activists who live in campus accommodation and it lasted only c. 40 minutes. Physical distancing was adhered to at all times.<\/p>\n

Students involved in the exercise said that there are currently c. 200 students still on rent strike over unfair rent claims made by the University. Many students are stuck on campus due to the lockdown; this affects international students in particular. The University had not yet shown its willingness to negotiate with the students, who made their demands several weeks ago. The students stuck on campus still have to pay the full rent despite many services not being provided, and those who, due to the lockdown rules, had to leave belongings in their abandoned rooms still have to pay 25%.<\/p>\n

The students involved in the banner action said that they now struggle with the supply of basic essentials on campus, especially a scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables. They have had to rely on the heavily overpriced campus Spar and campus central markets, which they say have only a very limited supply of everyday essentials. Fruit and vegetables currently sold in the shops on campus are limited and often near their expiry date. They are also overpriced, compared to the prices for the same items in grocery shops in town. The students also lamented that due to the COVID-19 lockdown, cleaning doesn’t take place in their halls, yet they are still asked to pay for it.<\/p>\n

The students reported that it feels strange and somewhat eerie to live on an almost deserted campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A contributed report from your socially distanced subtext correspondent Student members of ACORN, the tenants and community union, put up a banner saying cancel the rent above the University underpass, and cancel the rent and housing is health posters onto … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,4],"tags":[580,577,210,283],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributed-article","category-news","tag-acorn","tag-issue-194","tag-protest","tag-rent-strike"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-kB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1485,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2021\/02\/19\/diary-of-a-rent-strike-organiser\/","url_meta":{"origin":1277,"position":0},"title":"Diary of a Rent Strike Organiser","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 19 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Contributed article by Jude Rowley Lancaster students have spent the last five weeks calling on University management to cut the rent and start taking student wellbeing seriously. When the pandemic hit last March, students \u2014 fed-up with being abandoned by University management and following in the footsteps of their predecessors\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contributed article"","block_context":{"text":"contributed article","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/contributed-article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1487,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2021\/02\/19\/struck-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":1277,"position":1},"title":"Struck Off","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 19 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Lancaster's student rent strike, which saw thousands of learners organise remotely to challenge the University's insistence that they pay for campus rooms that they weren't using, ended last week. The Director of Finance reported, at the Vice-Chancellor's all-staff meeting on 29 January, that 2,000 students had accepted management's initial offer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":219,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/11\/23\/the-rent-is-too-damn-high\/","url_meta":{"origin":1277,"position":2},"title":"THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 23 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Visitors to campus in recent days may have been rather baffled by the amount of pasta being handed out to passers-by. Those in the know, however, may well have been pleased to see some protest activity from the Students\u2019 Union around an issue that clearly matters to students. The issue\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":207,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/11\/23\/shart-attack-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":1277,"position":3},"title":"SHART ATTACK","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 23 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"FROM: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U). TO: Jacob Woolly, President, LuVE-U Student Experience Coordination Unit. CC: Hewlett Venkklinne, Lead Negotiator: External Cognizance. SUBJECT: Rent increases. Dear Jacob, Please see attached the official university response to the rent complaints. ** LuVE-U has some of the best student\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "shart attack"","block_context":{"text":"shart attack","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/shart-attack\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1515,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2021\/11\/11\/valete-team-spineless\/","url_meta":{"origin":1277,"position":4},"title":"Valete, Team Spineless","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 11 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Spineless, Lancaster's alternative source of student news and comment, is no more. This is for the happy reason that the (officially anonymous) members of the Spineless team have now successfully graduated from Lancaster, leaving behind a 16-month archive of articles that dissected University House, the University Council and the students'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":709,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/09\/13\/the-students-union\/","url_meta":{"origin":1277,"position":5},"title":"THE STUDENTS’ UNION","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"September 13 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"It all started so well for the Students' Union. In subtext 169 we reported on their campaign against an unnecessary rent increase of up to \u00a3249. To make their displeasure known, LUSU set up a stall and put \u00a3249 worth of pasta on display. A little gimmicky, we thought, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "history"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1362,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/1362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}