Migration 
Our housing project officer, Rob King and Access to Justice project officer, Elinor Mattey share their thoughts on anti-racism training in the Private Rented Sector
The Welsh Government has announced that Rent Smart Wales is to deliver anti-racism and hate crime training to private residential landlords and agents as one of its actions to deliver the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan, which aims to become a racism free nation by 2030. The training is part of the wider goal to ensure that Private Rented Sector housing, accommodation and service provision ‘advances equality, embers anti-racism and meets diverse needs of minority people’.
The intended impact of the training is ‘increased support to enable tenants to access the PRS and sustain tenancies.’ Housing is a foundational need and so it is clear that any real effort to create an anti-racist Wales has to address inequalities embedded in housing. The action plan says that further research will take place into the prevalence of racism and discrimination in the private housing sector. This research should inform the content of the training, so that the needs of those facing discrimination is embedded in the support that landlords will be trained to give.
The private rental sector offers unique challenges to BAME tenants, and it is impossible to create an anti-racist Wales without eliminating the barriers that BAME people face in the housing sector, such as landlords having preference for prospective white tenants (and several cases of landlords refusing ‘non-white sounding names’), the varying paths into homelessness, or ensuring they have the ability to address hate crime and discrimination where it arises.
It is important that discrimination and racism is tackled before tenancies have even been signed, alongside ensuring the sustainability of tenancies. The current system of housing in Wales remains open to discriminatory practices which need to be addressed in creating an equal and fair Wales.
Whilst this and the non-compulsory training is welcomed, it should be achieved through a holistic and intersectional approach, rather than an isolated action. Creating a truly anti-racist Wales necessitates addressing the systemic inequalities in a housing system that relies on an imbalance of power between the parties within the system and is therefore wide-open to discriminatory practices. Plans for anti-racism training are a welcome beginning, but creating an anti-racist Wales is a long road and requires the addressing of material conditions and structures of power across Wales to truly eliminate discrimination in all its forms.
