Campaigns.
Campaigns at Slurp are founded on the notion that homelessness and housing injustice are not inevitable and could be ended with political will. Our campaigns seek to improve understanding of the complexities of housing injustice whilst challenging the factors that perpetuate it.
Community Campaigns
Slurp’s Community Campaigns team seeks to challenge the institutional and educational failures that perpetuate housing injustice in the non-student community. This includes striving to better educate ourselves and the student community on the complexity of homelessness and its causes, through panel talks and other initiatives. In 2022 we welcomed an expert panel to discuss LGBTQ+ homelessness. Our Community Campaigns are intended to complement our voluntary and outreach work.
Student Campaigns
Student Campaigns at Slurp seek justice for students who have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity during their studies. We aim to promote greater understanding of the unique challenges faced by students when finding and paying for accommodation during their studies, and the effect that this can have on their mental and physical health.
Here are the results from our most recent survey for the 2023/24 academic year. We found that students are again suffering from acute housing insecurities, including lack of access to adequate permanent or temporary accommodation and extreme affordability crises. We also found that the housing crisis disproportionately affects trans and non-binary students, Widening Participation students, and those with specific accessibility requirements.
We used the results from last year’s (2022/23) survey to campaign for universities in Edinburgh to take more responsibility for housing, and ensuring that all students have access to adequate, affordable accommodation.
In the short-term we are demanding the universities in Edinburgh immediately adopt an Emergency Accommodation Guarantee. This would mean that any student who informs their university that they are (or will imminently be) homeless is offered emergency accommodation which is affordable, accessible, and available until the student finds permanent accommodation.
In the long-term, we are demanding that universities in Edinburgh commit to a new long-term housing plan. This new plan must balance student numbers and housing stock based on the explicit aim that all students have access to affordable, long-term accommodation, whether private or university owned.
To this end, we have suggested that universities:
o Conduct an independent audit of the available housing stock in Edinburgh to determine a sustainable student intake.
o This should keep student intake at least below 2019 levels unless a significant increase in affordable housing stock has been proven.
o Pledge to move away from Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) provision towards University-owned accommodation, given that PBSAs are unaccountable to students and consistently unaffordable.
o Commit to running university accommodation as an essential service which does not generate a surplus beyond what is needed for its upkeep and maintenance.
o Commit to helping expand student housing cooperatives in Edinburgh as an affordable, student-led alternative to private and PBSA options.
o Permanently include essential quality of life measures in the University’s Pulse Survey, including housing status, affordability, and the wider cost of living.
o Include accommodation questions as part of the universities’ matriculation processes to determine exactly how many students are affected by homelessness in Edinburgh.