What would a world look like if you didn’t have to pay rent? Well, today’s guest Tracy Rosenthal asks this very question with Jack and Clara.

Tracy is a writer, organiser, and co-founder of the LA Tenants Union, the United States’ largest tenants' union.

They have written for The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Jewish Currents, and others.

Their book Abolish Rent, which was co-written alongside their comrade Leonardo

Vilchis. It is a manifesto for a world without rent.

Alongside their writing and organising, they are also an advisor at UCLA’s Institute for Inequality and Democracy and a fellow at CUNY’s Centre for Place, Culture and Politics.

Music is by Sion Lewin, our graphics are designed by Bella Harter, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek.

📣 Tracey will be speaking in London at this even on the 29th of May: https://pelicanhouse.org/event/abolish-rent-how-tenants-can-end-the-housing-crisis/

Jules Zakolska and Conor Crooks are the founders of the campaign group Homes For Lambeth Tenants.

The group fights to resist their landlord, a for-profit company called Homes For Lambeth, who are currently serving them Section 21 no-fault evictions.

What is notable about Homes For Lambeth is that it is owned and operated by the Labour-run Lambeth Council.

In 2022, an independent review found the company operating with ‘inconsistent approaches, poor communications, delays, lack of consideration, and confusion of responsibilities between Hfl and Lambeth Council’

At the time of recording, they both face eviction from their respective flats and are fighting removal from their homes.

Music is by Sion Lewin, the graphics are designed by Bella Harter, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek.

After a wee break, we are back with an extra long jam packed episode (not cream on first, thank you), be prepared to leave everything you think you know about Cornwall behind, as we discover the state of housing and the housing movement in Kernow with Bella Smith.

Music is by Sion Lewin, the graphics are designed by Bella Harter, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek.

Looking at housing and the home in the UK without looking at migration is impossible. From the Romans, to The Windrush generation and beyond, its impact on how we live our lives is undeniable. It has shaped all aspects of our culture, including how we live in our towns and our homes.

In our fourth episode, we are focused on the wave of refugees fleeing the rise of fascism in Central Europe in the 1930s and how they shaped our town's architecture and much more.

To look at this perhaps under explored aspect of British migration - which included some of the century’s greatest thinkers like Bertol Brecht, Ruth Glass and Erno Goldfinger - Jack and Clara are joined by Owen Hatherley to discuss how it shaped living in modern Britain.

Owen is a historian, writer and cultural critic who has published an array of books such as Red Metropolis, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain and The Chaplin Machine. Previously, the cultural editor of Tribune magazine, he appeared in Jacobin, BBC Radio 4, The Guardian, covering topics such as architecture, politics and culture.

His new book The Alienation Effect: How Central Emigres Transformed the British Twentieth Century explores the many ways their lives contributed to our ideas of the home, whether that be architecture, city planning or just their ideas.

It is out via Penguin on 27 March

Music is by Sion Lewin, the graphics are designed by Bella Harter, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek. It was recorded at MayDay Rooms.

How do we explain Theresa May’s racist ‘Right to Rent’ policy? How do we understand the widespread displacement of thriving communities to line the pockets of gentrifying developers in areas like Brixton, Elephant and Castle, Peckham and Tottenham? How are slumlords able to force migrant workers to live in cramped and deadly conditions like the kind which led to the death of 41-year-old Deliveroo driver Mizanur Rahman following a fire at Maddox House in 2023? Nick Bano has the answer; racial capitalism.

For our third episode, the Against Landlords author and barrister breaks down to Clara and Jack how the concept pioneered by thinkers such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Walter Rodney, Gargi Bhattacharya and others is essential to understanding our current and historical context.

To resist it, argues Nick, is to resist the ‘YIMBY’ myth of building is the route to safe, secure and affordable homes.

He and fans of his 2024 book were dubbed “edgy Maoist rebels” by the Institute of Economic Affairs. It is out on paperback on 15 April via Verso.

Music is by Sion Lewin, the graphics are designed by Bella Harter, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek.

It was recorded at MayDay Rooms, Fleet Street and Maddox House, Shadwell.

Have you ever wondered what to do about your high rent? Have you ever stopped to ask why this is the case? Ever wondered what can be done about it? Well, you’ve come to the right place! For the second ever episode of This Must Be The Place, Clara and Jack spoke to veteran housing campaigner Siobhan Donnachie to talk everything RENT CONTROLS!

We discussed how we used to have them, why we need them and what can be done to get them back, using examples from successful movements across the world.

Music is by Sion Lewin Bella Harter designs our graphics, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek.

What if we rejected the notion of the private home and instead embraced collective living and community care? This is one of the vital questions posed by Alva Gotby in her new book, Feeling At Home (which is out now via Verso).

The housing organiser and writer joins Clara and Jack to chat about this and much more on the podcast’s first-ever episode.

Music is by Sion Lewin, our graphics are designed by Bella Harter, and the show is produced by Clara Hill and Jack Witek.

It was recorded at MayDay Rooms, Fleet Street

Her first book, They Call It Love, explored the politics of emotions and was published in 2023, also by Verso.

In our first ever instalment of This Must Be The Place - a podcast about housing and the home, Clara and Jack introduce the show