Lib Peck – What’s your priorities! Social housing or social cleansing?

Lambeth Council leader Lib Peck will be speaking at MIPIM, the world’s leading property fair, being held in London Olympia on 15th – 17th of this month. MIPIM is the place for developers, speculators, landowners and politicians to meet in order to carve up our cities while prioritising profit over people. It has been the favoured honeymoon destination of Southwark Council and Heygate developers Lend Lease over the years; one of many wonderful matches made at MIPIM.

MIPIM, where our cities are carved up between politicians, investors and developers.

It seems Lib Peck’s session, “Affordable Housing: Is it Worth it?”, and the opportunity to schmooze with private investors takes precedence over meeting her constituents. One resident of the Guinness Estate in Lambeth due for eviction before Christmas awaits response from the council leader who has remained silent over the possibility of a meeting to discuss the fate of 45 households being cleared from this estate.

Lib Peck – we ask you to meet residents of the Guinness estate and their supporters at MIPIM on Wednesday 15th. Show us what your priorities are: the fight against the homelessness of your constituents or private profiteering in our Borough?

The Radical Housing Network has plans to protest at the opening and closing of MIPIM, while also organising a conference to discuss and mobilise for the alternatives. Join us!

London Coalition Against Poverty meeting this Friday

Inspired by the Focus E15 mum’s occupation and Our Hendon’s regular blockades of Barratts to prevent the destruction of their homes? Want to get involved in local and London-wide housing action? Come along to this Friday’s London Coalition Against Poverty general meeting. London Coalition Against Poverty is made up of local groups which meet regularly to provide support and take action together on issues faced and raised by their members – from helping each other make bedroom tax appeals, visiting the housing office on mass to take on the gate keeping of the homelessness application process, and the odd occupation of council homes facing sell-off.

Every 2-3 months, groups that are members of LCAP, of which HASL is one, meet up together to share what they have been up to in their local boroughs, exchange advice and tactics, and plan actions and other events such as training sessions. Whether there’s an LCAP group in your area that you’d like to meet, or you’re interested in starting a group, come along this Friday to meet people and get involved! The meeting will start at 1.30pm at Casa Latina (groundfloor room), 10 Kingsgate Place (off Kilburn High Road), Kilburn, NW6 4TA

You can read more about LCAP’s stories, experiences and ideas for organising in this ace pamphlet.

Twitter Storm @Lambeth_Council this Thursday from 12pm – Stop pushing homeless people into the private sector!

Children lying in the small, cramped room of private accommodation.

Join and share our facebook event here

Since 2012 councils across the UK have been granted the power by the Coalition government to discharge their duty to homeless people with an offer in the private sector and manage their own social housing allocation policies. Before the Localism Act homeless people who the council had a duty to house would eventually get secure, affordable social housing in their local community. Now, homeless people can be forced to accept accommodation in the private sector where they are at risk of more evictions and homelessness as well as being forced out of their home borough and even beyond London because of high London rents. Scroll down to the bottom of this blog to read a HASL members experience of being forced to go through this process by Lambeth council.

The Localism Act means increased housing precarity, social cleansing, and yet more public subsidy for private landlords through housing benefit. Homeless people are having their lives made even more difficult by these policies which deny them much needed secure, social housing. What is left of our social housing stock is also at risk as councils’ new housing allocations policies (basically heavily restricting who can apply for social housing) make it look like there is less demand for social housing when in reality demand for quality, secure, truly affordable housing is massive.

The Focus E15 mums, who were threatened with being moved out of their home of Newham to Manchester and Hastings, have been taking action on this issue for a year now under the banner ‘Social Housing, Not Social Cleansing’. In our previous blog, we look at how the Localism Act is playing out in Lambeth with Lambeth council lowering the band that homeless people are in meaning that they are unlikely to get much needed social housing, while at the same time playing a trick on homeless people, encouraging them to find private sector accommodation with the promise that this will move them up a band and closer to social housing.

We think manipulating people like this and denying social housing to those in need is wrong! Everyone deserves affordable, secure, quality, social housing.

At the same time the leader of Lambeth has made sure to speak at MIPIM, the “worlds largest property fair”, in London next month. No doubt Lib Peck wishes to welcome more speculative money and unaffordable developments wrecking our borough.

Enough!

If you are on Twitter join us this Thursday between 12pm and 2pm to Tweet at Lib Peck and Lambeth Council. Help us ruffle some feathers and get some answers.

We want to know:

– Why is Lambeth council failing homeless people by forcing them into the private sector?

– Why has Lambeth adopted an allocation policy that undermines the demand for social housing while tricking applicants that their chances of social housing will be improved?

To tweet at Lambeth Council add @Lambeth_council to your tweet. To tweet at Lib Peck add @cllrpeck

Click below to use our tweet buttons.
Tweet #StopSocialCleansing

Tweet #StopSocialCleansing

HASL members experience of being stuck in temporary accommodation and pressured into the private sector.

“I am a mother of 2 little ones. One thing that I never thought about is by having a family our lives will be really hard. I had to quit my job when I had my 2 children due to the cost of the nursery. Rip off.

And unfortunately with time our family become homeless we were living with a friend in his council flat and Lambeth repossessed the flat and put us in a temporary accommodation in Upper Tulse hill (this temporary accommodation is on a council estate and was formerly council housing until it was bought under Right to Buy. Now the council are paying housing benefit to a private landlord for a temporary home which had once been secure social housing).

I feel directly touch by this social cleansing in Lambeth, we are trying to get our head out of the water but Lambeth and this new policy about housing keep pushing us inside the water to drown us more and more maybe until we died who knows !!!

We live in a constant fears our situation is just unfair because we can’t access to affordable social housing we have to stay poor. Lambeth push us to rent privately with ridiculous amount of rent that we can’t afford with no other choice, and if we can’t pay rent then we have to move out from Lambeth… we are harassed, blackmailed and not respected as human beings by Lambeth and this new law.

Us people in temporary accommodation we are like a donkey who run behind the carrot that we will never get. You go to private and I move you to band B, that is a disgrace.

I am trying to get back to work and can’t apply to any job as I need to make sure I will still get housing benefit to be able to pay my expensive rent otherwise will get homeless again. Basically Lambeth keep us in this situation, a Labour party which should help us, don’t.

My heart is in Brixton and I will fight to stay where I belong to, the more we are the stronger we will get.  We can’t be treated like animal because we are homeless.”

HASL and the London Coalition Against Poverty are researching into the Localism Act and how it is playing out across London, as well as planning actions on the issue. Get in touch if you’d like to be involved or if you’d like to share what’s happening in your borough. haslemail[at]gmail.com

 

Solidarity with protestors challenging LASPO section 144

We’ll be supporting our friends of Camden Housing Action Group who are in court next week for their protest occupation against the sell-off of council housing by Camden council. More details below. Please join and share their facebook event here.

2 protestors who occupied a residential building owned by Camden council in protest at its sell-off and the wider sell-off of council housing across London, will be at Highbury Corner Magistrates court next Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th August.

They are being charged under the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders Act section 144 which makes it a criminal offence to live or intend to live in an abandoned residential building. Section 144 criminalises homeless people trying to find a home. It also criminalises protesters who are trying to take action against the housing crisis through protest occupations such as this one.

Come along for court support to show your solidarity. Join us outside the court at 9.30am, bring placards and banners. We’ll then head in for the court case at 10am.

Quality, secure, affordable social housing for all! Scrap LASPO section 144!

More info on the protest occupation here: http://camdenhousingaction.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/camden-council-houses-occupied-in-stoptheselloffs-protest/

Previous cases successfully challenging LASPO section 144 include:

Occupation Against Southwark Sell-off Still Going at Park Street

http://rooftopresistance.squat.net/fuck-s144-some-quick-analysis-of-the-brighton-case/
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/11/513573.html

Get involved!

This Saturday we attended the London Coalition Against Poverty (which HASL is a part of) Annual General Meeting. LCAP meetings are always really helpful and interesting meetings as they provide the chance for the different housing and welfare action groups from across London to share what issues they have been facing, tactics they have been using, and other ideas for action. We used some of the time to plan what we would like to do over the year ahead – as our communities face soaring rents, increased evictions, benefit sanctions, rising food bank use, and falling wages. Our short brain storming session led to a load of exciting projects that we’d like to take forward including:

Direct action casework training sessions to talk about and role play tactics and reflect on the model. The training sessions would be useful for those already in groups and also for those who are interested in starting up a local group in their area.

Information trainings – for example, working tax credits workshop, benefit sanctions workshop. These two types of training would of course overlap, so as part of a benefit sanctions workshop we would also have time to discuss practical collective action to enforce and extend our rights.

Information gathering and actions on councils discharging their duty to homeless people through the private sector and also on housing associations who are mistreating their tenants, regenerating and evicting estates, and essentially behaving like private landlords.

It’d be great to have more people’s input and energy with these projects and any other ideas you’d like to contribute. If you are interested in getting involved or you’d like to be kept updated on LCAP’s activities drop us an email at haslemail@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you. Come along to our next meeting which will be on Friday 3rd October at 1pm in Kilburn (more details to be confirmed) hosted by the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group.

As HASL, as well as contributing to the LCAP activities above, we’ve also got lots of plans for activities locally.

We’re organising an anti-gentrification walk around Brixton to take a look at some of the major changes/cleansing in our neighbourhoods, including some of the struggles emerging on estates such as Myatts Field North and Loughborough Park Guinness Trust, stories from Brixton past, and the growing number of artisan food places and new housing developments with no social housing, ending up at Windrush square and sharing food together.

We’re also hoping to organise a film showing of the Berlin housing struggles film Rent Rebels.

We also regularly meet to support each other with our housing issues by sharing information (both from our personal experiences and from our developing understanding of the more formal/legal rights and processes) and ideas, and planning actions around these.

Again, if you’d like to get involved in helping with any of the above or join our announcements email and text alerts, get in contact! haslemail@gmail.com or come along to our next meeting, Wednesday 27th August, 6.30pm at Renton Close Community Centre, Brixton Hill, SW2 1EY. Everyone angry at social cleansing, soaring rents and benefit cuts and who wants to do something about it welcome!

Join Guinness Trust residents’ twitter storm. Stop the evictions, local social housing NOW.

Tweet @GuinnessPartnership Wednesday 23rd July, 1-3pm

Tweet to @YourGuinness

Tweet to @YourGuinness

Tweet to @YourGuinness

If you add a full stop (.) at the start of the tweet, it will allow all your followers to see it too.

Guinness Trust residents on Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs) on the Loughborough Park estate are facing eviction as their so-called social landlord, Guinness Partnership, has written them out of the regeneration plans. After many years living on the estate and being a part of the local community, AST residents are being evicted, made homeless and forced out of their community. We have written about this previously here, and have held a lively protest on the estate.

Residents have described the process as social and ethnic cleansing. The residents have also told us of the intense stress and worry that they have had to endure over the last couple of years, living on what is essentially a building site and watching the new homes be built whilst they wonder where they will end up living.

The residents have started up a campaign, supported by us and Lambeth Housing Activists, calling on Guinness Partnership to rehouse all AST residents in local, social housing (preferably in the new houses they have built on Guinness Trust, Loughborough Park so as to keep the community together). On Wednesday 23rd July from 1-3pm, join our Twitter storm letting Guinness Partnership know what you think about them making people homeless and destroying communities. Tell them that we want local, social housing for all AST residents. Feel free to use the tweet buttons below and also to write your own personal tweets to Guinness Partnership. Retweet other people’s tweets to get the word out and put the pressure on Guinness Partnership.

Not on Twitter? You can email Guinness Partnership on gs.mail@guinness.org.uk or leave a post on their facebook page here (where they apparently respond to your post within 3 working hours)

In solidarity with all those fighting evictions, social cleansing, gentrification, high rents and for our communities.

See you on the tweets!

 

Myatts field day of action – 25th July

Graffiti on the Myatts Field North redevelopment

Next Friday (25th July) at 10am at a location to be confirmed tenants will be taking action against the redevelopment of the Myatts Field North estate in Brixton which is being done through a Public Finance Initiative (PFI). A PFI is where a company has fronted the money and Lambeth will pay it back for years at rip off rates. Residents are already seeing:

• Higher rents
• Energy monopoly (EON will control the residents energy prices for the next 45 years)
• Lease holders are being evicted and given poor compensation for their home
• Green space has been lost
• Residents have had no say in any of this so far

Myatts Field Residents say:

“We welcome housing groups , tenants from other estates and trade unions to join us at 10am on Friday 25th July (location to be confirmed!).
Wednesday 23rd July we will also be holding a residents meeting in the Bramah Green Community Centre at 7pm , members of the public are welcome to join in.

Please let us know if you are interested in coming to any of the above so we have an idea of the numbers .

The tremendous vote against privatisation on the neighbouring Cowley estate and the angry mood of residents living on the PFI redevelopment shows there is a momentum building in favour of council housing for all, and against the councils complicity with the private sector.”

Guinness Trust residents protest against evictions

 

Guinness Partnership – No evictions!

Some photos of billowing banners and a sunny protest here

On Friday, Guinness Trust shorthold tenants held a loud and lively protest on the estate against evictions and demanding local, social housing. Assured Shorthold Tenants (ASTs) are threatened with eviction and homelessness as part of the estate’s ‘regeneration’. More information here including a tweet button to let ‘social’ landlords Guinness Partnership know what you think of their social cleansing plans.

Over thirty people joined the protest which saw the Guinness Partnership close their office on the estate for the afternoon. The residents’ campaign is supported by Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth and Lambeth Housing Activists. A number of secure tenants joined the protest and a group from the House Of Brag queer social centre in the old Joy shop, who have been making links with local Brixton struggles, came down to support. People played drums, chanted, and spoke with residents and passersby about what was happening to the ASTs.

There was a huge amount of support from the people we spoke with, especially other residents on the estate. On hearing that the Guinness Partnership were making his neighbours homelessness one man said: “it’s wrong, it’s wrong”. Another woman who lived on the estate expressed her anger at the Guinness Partnership’s actions and remarked how this was part of the wider gentrification of Brixton. Talking about all the new shops that have been springing up she asked, “who needs soda bread and ham that’s been cured for 28 days?”

Keep your eyes on this blog, facebook and twitter for more actions as part of the campaign calling on the Guinness Partnership to stop the evictions and provide ASTs with local, social housing. Get in touch with us if you’d like to get involved: haslemail@gmail.com

Focus E15 mums’ March for Decent Housing. Photo credit: Peter Marshall, Demotix

Then, on Saturday we joined the Focus E15 mums’ campaign and people from other housing groups across London for the ‘March for Decent Housing’ through Newham. Like the ASTs on the Guinness Trust estate, Focus E15 mums are demanding local, social housing after Newham council tried to move the mums out of London into private accommodation in Manchester and Hastings. The campaign saw them win a partial victory as they have been housed in their home borough of Newham, however, the Focus E15 mums are calling for local, secure and affordable social housing for their families and for everyone.

 

Struggling with a housing issue? Angry at high rents, poor housing, and evictions in your communities? Come along to our next meeting, Thursday 10th July, 12pm, Papa’s cafe meeting room, 2-10 Pulross Road, SW9 8AF.

 

Energy rights workshop with HASL and Fuel Poverty Action – Tuesday 8th July

Join us and Fuel Poverty Action on Tuesday 8th July, 6.30pm at Art Nouveau, 77 Atlantic Road, Brixton, SW9 8PU to learn about our energy rights, how we can enforce these, and how we can take action together for warm homes for all.

It’s summer – but people are struggling to pay rip-off energy bills year round and with winter around the corner, it’s a good time to get clued up on our rights, how we can support each other with our energy issues, and discuss what action we can take together to combat fuel poverty in our communities. A recent article in a Glasgow newspaper showed that people visiting the local food bank were using camping stoves indoors to cook food because they couldn’t afford their gas and electric bills. People cannot afford to cook their food and lives are endangered as people resort to desperate measures such as camping stoves to get warm food.

Please find our poster below and spread the word!

Guinness Partnership – stop making people homeless! Local, social housing for all residents of the Guinness Trust estate

Protest with us on Friday 4th July, 3.30pm meeting at the front of Guinness Trust estate, Loughborough Park, SW9 8NL.

Residents of the Guinness Trust estate, Loughborough Park, are campaigning against so-called ‘social landlord’, Guinness Partnership, who have been making tenants on Assured Shorthold Tenancies (insecure tenancies) homeless as part of the ‘regeneration’ of the estate. Guiness Partnership will in total have made 150 households homeless by the end of the ‘regeneration’. Those that qualify for ‘help’ from Lambeth council face months of exile as Lambeth house hundreds outside the borough while they process their claim for homelessness.

Together, Guinness Trust estate residents, Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth, and Lambeth Housing Activists are calling on Guinness Partnership to provide local, social housing for all residents faced with eviction and homelessness. We welcome you to get involved too! Why not contact Guinness Partnership expressing your concern at a ‘social landlord’ making people homeless, there contact details are here and you can tweet them here.

Tweet to @YourGuinness

Keep your eyes on our blog for more news and updates, and get in contact if you’d like to get involved: haslemail[at]gmail.com

Guinness Trust estate is one of many estates across London being subjected to ‘regeneration’. Regeneration for who, though? For many residents and communities, this means eviction, homelessness, displacement, and the loss of desperately needed social housing. This quality article on the Brixton Blog includes residents of the Guinness Trust describing the impact of eviction on their lives. One person describes how they were admitted to hospital for four weeks after being evicted by Guinness Partnership. The residents describe how the regeneration is a process of social and ethnic cleansing.

Residents on the estate tried to organise together back in 2010 to have a say in the regeneration, but their attempts were frustrated by the Guinness Partnership who refused to acknowledge their tenants group and allow them use of the community centre. At one of the protests, the residents were threatened by the police and this also contributed to the end of the campaign. ‘9 Stories in Brixton’, a film made by the residents can be seen below. But the residents haven’t given up on their campaign, it’s starting up again.

 

A Guinness Trust AST resident has written to Lambeth council leader Lib Peck asking for her support for the rehousing of Guinness Trust AST residents by Guinness Parternship. Read her letter below