IMPORTANT UPDATE: After Public Interest Law Centre threatened legal action, Lambeth council have now agreed to extend the consultation deadline – for this consultation as well as 2 other housing consultations – to 19th January 2024. Please do keep using and sharing our template answers for the housing waiting list consultation here.
🚨Do you live in Lambeth or have another connection with Lambeth?
📝Lambeth council are running a consultation/survey to get our views on new rules for the social housing waiting list. This is a vital opportunity to make the waiting list rules better and fairer for everyone – especially those in the worst housing.
🏚️Under the current rules, homeless families have been trapped in temporary accommodation for years and even decades because they are stuck at the bottom of the housing waiting list. Under the new rules being proposed, homeless households will finally be closer to getting the social housing they need. This is a long overdue step from the council – for a decade, Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth members in temporary accommodation have been campaigning against being trapped ‘Too Long in Temporary’.
💬Over 50 HASL members living in temporary accommodation and severely overcrowded housing have collectively written our answers to the council’s housing waiting list consultation.
✊If you are a Lambeth resident (or have any other connection to Lambeth such as working in the borough, or having family members in the borough), please show your support by using our online form to send HASL’s answers directly to Lambeth council (you can edit our answers if you wish but we hope you agree with what we have written!)
✍️use this link here to send our template answers to Lambeth council:https://t.ly/5bX8b
🗣️Please share with your friends, family and neighbours. The more people who use our answers, the bigger the impact we will have!
The deadline for submitting responses to the consultation is Friday 19th January 2024.
In our answers we have argued:
✨Homeless households should get band B, they have been trapped in temporary accommodation for too long!
✨A ‘time in band’ system should be introduced so that people’s waiting time reflects their housing need, this is the fairest system and helps those in the worst housing
✨Lambeth council should not remove people in band D, this is unfair and hides the huge need there is for social housing.
❓Do you have any questions or need help using the online form? Get in touch with us: email: haslcases@gmail.comwhatsapp message: 07930 062282
For the last decade, Lambeth council’s housing waiting list rules have been a disaster for Lambeth’s most vulnerable residents – homeless rights have been undermined, hundreds of residents wrongly were kicked off the waiting list (until a legal challenge by HASL members saw almost 1,000 people have their accounts re-activated), the council’s scheme has facilitated mass queue jumping ahead of families in housing need, and the rules are complicated and confusing. The introduction of new and fairer rules will be a big improvement for Lambeth residents. But for everyone to have a safe, secure, council home in their community, we also need huge investment and expansion of high-quality, family-sized, 3, 4, 5 bed council homes. Join HASL’s campaigns so that we can make sure we all have the high-quality council homes we need and deserve!
Follow us on social media and help amplify our campaigns!
Twitter: @housingactionsl
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Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth 