SCOTLAND is no stranger to housing activism.

This March saw the unveiling of a sculpture commemorating the legendary Glasgow radical Mary Barbour. In 1915 unscrupulous landlords were taking advantage of the wartime economy — pushing up rents as thousands of workers flocked to Glasgow’s shipyards and munitions factories.

Barbour led a 20,000-strong rent strike in what was then the British empire’s second city.

And her success in securing a rent freeze across Britain until 1919 serves as an inspiration to Scottish activists fighting on similar turf today.

George Lavery, who stays in Glasgow’s vibrant but poor district of Govanhill, says housing is now “one of the main methods of exploitation.”

And as a lay organiser with Living Rent, he’s fighting back.

“Increasingly, [housing] is a more and more powerful tool to take advantage of the vulnerable,” he tells the Morning Star.

“Rents are increasing at a faster rate than people’s wages and so it’s more and more difficult for anyone to get even on the property ladder.”

Lavery has much experience of precarious work — being on a zero-hour contract himself. But many people are now facing the reality of “precarious living” as well, he says.

“It’s totally necessary that we organise together to start to take on the issues of the housing crisis. Living Rent provided an amazing opportunity to do that.”

Living Rent started as a campaign to submit collective responses to the Scottish government’s housing consultations. But four years on, it’s a fully fledged tenants’ union — and already finding success.

“There’s been quite a few campaigns around rent decreases — securing 25 per cent rent decreases,” says Emma Saunders, who organises with Living Rent in Edinburgh.

“We’ve secured thousands of pounds worth [of savings for tenants], stopping evictions, contesting illegal fees.”

In February, a Living Rent member contacted union HQ to say that a Glasgow letting agent had collected “screening fees.”

Activists then picketed the agent’s office — where management had locked the door, shut the blinds, hired security and called the police.

But after a comic stand-off and negotiations through a police sergeant, the member was reimbursed £600 by the agency.

“The strength and discipline of our members was second to none and ensured a peaceful outcome,” Living Rent reported on its website.

But as well as taking on individual cases, Living Rent is campaigning on “bigger issues as well.” Not least for statutory rent controls.

The union is also concerned about the rise of holiday rentals platform Airbnb in “tight” housing markets such as Edinburgh.

Activists are calling for “very strong legislation” to limit these short, expensive lets, which it says are “forcing already unaffordable rents up.”

A bottom-up approach is key to the union’s philosophy. These activists take on outreach work in areas where they don’t yet have a presence. But, Lavery says, you can’t do this without listening.

“We don’t want to come in and impose our own agendas,” he says. “We want to build on the views of the communities themselves and fight the battles they feel need to be fought.”