About ACORN

1 in 5 households in England rent. If you rent, have rented, or know a renter, you will know all about the many issues that make it a miserable experience. Poor quality and expensive homes, insecurity and landlords who can kick you out of your home on a whim.

Since ACORN began, we’ve been leading the fight back against the housing crisis.

We’ve resisted hundreds of evictions, keeping people in their homes, we’ve marched on letting agents and landlords to get withheld deposits back in the pockets of our members and have made sure renters are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.  

We’ve beat unaffordable rent hikes for a whole street in Liverpool and have stopped mass evictions in Nottingham.

Renters Rights’ Act

In 2019, Theresa May announced plans to reform private renting following years of campaigning on the issue by ACORN and others.

Soon after, we joined the Renter’s Reform Coalition, which brought together renters organisations, charities and professional bodies, to push for this promised law change from the Government to deliver the real changes needed.

ACORN made sure our members experiences were front and centre, holding nationwide days of action, attending parliament, meeting with Ministers and MPs, giving evidence to committees and keeping the issue firmly in the media spotlight and high on the agenda of politicians. 

Now, 7 years, 4 Prime Ministers, 2 Government’s and lots of actions later, the Renters’ Rights Act is finally about to become law.

The new law will bring solid improvements in the area of security and standards for renters. It will finally get rid of section 21 ‘no fault evictions,’ see the introduction of open ended tenancies and a mandatory register of landlords. It will also see a new ‘Decent Homes Standard’ extended to privately rented homes and an end to ‘bidding wars.’

The first parts of the new law coming into effect on 1st May 2026, and we’ll be sharing more information as the date gets closer.

Landlord Licensing

We also campaign for renters’ rights at a local level. Over the years, we’ve fought for council’s to get tough on the problems facing renters, introducing landlord licensing to improve standards and hold landlords to account, providing legal protection from eviction and extending council powers to inspect properties.

We have won major licensing schemes in Brighton, Bristol, Oxford, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, with ongoing campaigns by other branches.

An end to rip-off Letting Fees

For years letting agents arbitrarily charged tenants extortionate fees for whatever they could think of: signing a tenancy, printing a contract, reference checks, you name it. In 2019 the government finally changed the law, banning most fees to tenants, following our campaigning.

Social and council homes should provide a secure, affordable place for people to live their lives and thrive.

They could be the solution to the housing crisis, but decades of successive government sell-offs without replacing them, and underfunding, have left them in short supply and too many in poor condition.

All too often, ACORN hears of problems facing social housing tenants: unsafe homes falling into disrepair, increasing rents and service charges but cuts to the services provided.

Our biggest social housing campaign win is the Bristol Towers United campaign, which secured £100million in fire and safety improvements in every council tower block in the city. Following a series of fires, including one which resulted in the death of a resident, residents came together to demand action from the council.

The successful campaign has led to the removal of dangerous cladding, sprinkler systems being fitted in tower blocks and new fire alarm systems.

The evacuation of Bristol’s Barton House over safety fears made international news, as has ACORN’s fight for justice for residents since.

Residents at a block in St Jude’s, Bristol, won £18m repairs after years of neglect and living with horrendous damp and mould.

Other notable council and social housing campaigns include accessibility ramps installed and lifts repaired at Exbury House in Hackney, and the Carpets Not Concrete campaign in Cornwall.

ACORN has also successful fought for members in sheltered accommodation, and temporary accommodation.

Over the years, ACORN has become known for our Eviction Resistance actions.

From Barnsley to Bristol, Cardiff to Coventry, time and time again we’ve mobilising our members, neighbours and community to link arms, block the bailiffs and keep people in their homes. This can be incredibly powerful, and is often a vital lifeline and extra time for families facing homelessness after being kicked out of their home.

Bully bailiff firms are making a killing from the misery of our communities during the cost of living crisis. ACORN says enough is enough!

As well as standing shoulder to shoulder and seeing off bailiffs from our members doorsteps across the country, our Bailiff Free Britain campaign is fighting for dignity from debt and a change to the whole system of council tax and debt collection.

Since launching in September 2025, we have taken action to demand 30 councils change their debt collection policies, shut down a national bailiff conference in Leeds, and have delivered demands to the government’s in Cardiff and London demanding council tax reform, with the support of politicians and trade union leaders.

This is an ongoing campaign, so head to this page for more info and to take action!

In 2017 and again in 2018, ACORN forced Santander and then TSB to drop a mortgage clause that prevented buy-to-let landlords from renting to benefits claimants, needlessly discriminating against some of the most vulnerable in society and fanning the flames of the housing crisis, after protests and occupations at their branches across the country.

Later in 2018, it was revealed that NatWest had the same policy, but were actively forcing landlords to evict tenants claiming housing benefit. Hundreds of renters protested and occupied banks in Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester, Newcastle, Brighton, Glasgow, and London, once again forcing a major bank to drop its discriminatory policies – with the policy change being extended to all UK branches within the RBS group (including NatWest, RBS, & Ulster Bank).

In May 2024, ACORN took action with occupations and protests outside 30 TSB branches across England and Wales, in protest at their buy-to-let mortgages which were limiting tenancy contracts to only 12 months, causing insecurity for renters. Within a few days, ACORN members were round the negotiating table at the bank’s HQ, and they agreed to drop the clause!

ACORN has been fighting the cost of living crisis on many fronts; from rent rises, to the cost of public services, cuts to benefits, fuel poverty and growing household debt. Some notable wins include:

ACORN Norwich’s ‘End Holiday Hunger’ campaign, which secured £7.2million in cost of living support for 30,000 families across Norfolk in 2023, who continued to receive food vouchers during the school holidays.

A Cornish housing association has halted its policy of pulling up perfectly good carpets prior to new occupancy, leading to some residents being left living with concrete floors in their homes in 2024, following a successful ‘Carpets not Concrete‘ campaign by ACORN Falmouth & Penryn.

In Sheffield, ACORN successfully stopped a redeveloper hiking heating bills for all residents of the famous Park Hill flats.

As well as national campaigns against benefit discrimination (see ‘ACORN vs the Banks’ above), ACORN has ran local campaigns to protest benefits claimants.

In 2017 Bristol City Council announced plans to scrap the Council Tax Reduction benefit, affecting around 25,000 of the poorest households in Bristol. ACORN launched a campaign to save it, with a mass petition, accountability meetings with the council and more. And we won – keeping an annual saving of £8million in the pockets of those who have been hit hardest by a decade of government cuts.

In 2023, it was once again at risk, but following more pressure from ACORN plans to cuts to the scheme were scrapped. 

ACORN’s Brighton branch has campaigned against housing discrimination, calling on the to clamp down on rogue landlords who wouldn’t let to renters in receipt of benefits. Lettings agencies across the city signed our pledge not to discriminate against benefit claimants.

For too long, our communities have had to put up with ‘public’ transport that doesn’t work for us. Privatisation and deregulation have created big profits for private companies, and made our trains and buses unaffordable and inefficient. 

So far, we’ve had wins in Bristol, Cambridgeshire, Leeds, Manchester, Merseyside, Oxfordshire, Sheffield and the West Midlands, with councils to start the process of bus franchising to bring buses back into public control, or making commitments to begin the process in the coming years.

ACORN has successfully campaigned to re-open public toilets – a basic necessity that could be needed by anyone at any time – closed by cuts in Brighton, Bristol and Newcastle.

ACORN Haringey won improvements at Tottenham Green swimming pool, with prices cut, cleanliness improved and more family sessions on offer.

During the pandemic, ACORN used our established structures to mobilise our members and support our communities! We made thousands of deliveries of food, prescriptions and vital support to vulnerable households across the country, and helped set up community food kitchens.

Through our ‘Housing is Health’ campaign, we lead the fight for no evictions during the pandemic, with a ban on bailiff-led evictions in place from March 2020 – May 2021.

We have since given evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry ‘Housing and Homelessness Roundtable Report,’ sharing the experiences of our members during the pandemic and looking at housing insecurity, affordability, evictions and disrepair. To read the full report, including our contributions, click here.