Are tenants people……..?

This is a long, well written piece (see link below) not directly about tenants or tenants’ rights. It’s a piece about a mine encroaching on a small town and a legal case to stop it coming closer.

However, during the court case, proponents argued that the town would not be gutted by the mine having to buy up the houses in the noise zone because they could tenant the properties. To quote the article,

“The judge began pressing an uncomfortable point; why was it acceptable for mine-worker tenants to be put into houses deemed too exposed to noise for their original owners to live in?”

If you want to go straight to the section on tenants, see Chapter 4, starting the 7th paragraph. There is a very interesting interchange between the Judge and the Government Barrister. The interchange touches on an issue that many tenants and their supporters will be familiar with – the trade off many households are forced to make between maintaining affordable rent costs and accepting conditions which do not meet community standards. The last paragraph in this section quoting the Judge is well worth reading!   Read the article from the Global Mail here.

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