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.
At short notice, HASL organised a huge response to Lambeth council’s out of the blue housing waiting list consultation. As well as being out of the blue, the time frame given by the council was just over 1 month. Despite these challenges, we were able to engage with our members and prepare a collective response with families in temporary accommodation and severely overcrowded housing. Over 100 Lambeth residents used our template answers to call on the council to make the housing waiting list rules fairer, especially for those at the worst end of the housing crisis. A big thank you to everyone who used and shared our template answers.
HASL also wrote up a detailed response to the housing waiting list consultation based on our years of experience of the current policy and all the problems we have faced. You can read this here. Apologies for any typos it contains, we were very rushed and tired by this point!
For a decade, HASL members in temporary accommodation have been campaigning against being trapped ‘Too Long in Temporary’ – the fact that Lambeth council have launched a consultation with one of the key proposals focussed on helping families in temporary accommodation to finally access social housing is definitely a victory we can claim!
We’ll be keeping a close eye on the next steps of this consultation and what Lambeth council are up to and we will keep everyone updated.
Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth 