HASL’s 2024 end of year round-up

HASL occupying Lewisham council housing office for our Halloween protest

2024 has been HASL’s busiest year ever fighting the devastating and spiralling homelessness crisis. We’ve regularly had over 200 people attending our twice monthly support meetings, mostly with very urgent situations. In the face of the horrendous housing situations our members are suffering, we have been organising mutual support, building our group’s capacity, and running campaigns and direct actions on a scale never seen before! In the worst ever year of the housing crisis, we have organised our biggest protests and won countless victories – many of them life-changing victories of secure, council housing in our local communities.

A big thank you to all our HASL members and supporters for your tireless support. Thanks to your efforts, every day across south London (and sometimes beyond!) we are supporting people to understand and enforce their housing rights, we let people know that they are not alone, and we are building a movement for the high-quality council homes we all need and deserve. Thank you to everyone who has helped in any way this year – participating in our group meetings, helping with translation/interpretation, telling friends about the group, engaging with our social media posts, joining protests, cooking us delicious food, setting up a solidarity standing order, and so much more! We’ve also loved working together with our friends Public Interest Law Centre, English for Action, Z2K (for their excellent and expert disability benefits advice), Parent Action, Lambeth Mutual Aid, and many other groups and new friends we’ve made over the year.

We hope everyone can have a good rest over the winter holidays and have the opportunity for reflection and goal setting that the end of the year brings.

We’re looking forward to returning with even more energy, strength and solidarity in the new year!

Here are some of our 2024 highlights – and sign-up to our monthly newsletter here to hear about our news throughout the year.

Over 300 HASL members serve eviction notice on Michael Gove

In April, 300 HASL members helped to make our biggest ever protest and the biggest protest of homeless families that London has seen in at least a decade. Our powerful, loud and determined protest demanded the family-sized council houses that we urgently need. We also delivered an eviction notice to Michael Gove at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for presiding over the biggest homeless crisis in the country’s history. The eviction notice warns that in order to avoid eviction, Michael Gove and his government must commit to: “A council housing revolution of high-quality, safe, secure, family-sized 3, 4, 5 bed council homes that our communities need and deserve.”

Watch the brilliant Reel News video of our protest (and please ‘like’ the video, leave a friendly comment, and subscribe to our friends Reel News channel).

Our biggest ever protest occupations

We kicked off the year with a protest occupation of Lambeth council’s housing office in support of Amin and his family after Lambeth council had wrongly said that they were not statutory overcrowded and were refusing them the emergency banding on the housing register that they qualified for. As well as the hazardous overcrowding, Amin’s baby daughter Dareen had been hospitalised 6 times due to the mouldy flat making the situation even more urgent. At the time, this was our biggest protest occupation with 60 HASL members participating and it was a huge success with the council quickly backing down and awarding the family the top band – band A – on the housing waiting list. Speaking to the media about his case, Amin explained: “This isn’t just a problem for us, it’s a lot of peoples’ problem as well, some maybe even worse. I’m hoping the council will help, not just me but other people as well.”   Watch us in action here.

In October, over 100 HASL members descended on Lewisham council’s housing office in a Halloween themed protest occupation over the appalling treatment of our members Anabel and Maria. In total the two families had spent almost 4 years in hostels and Anabel’s 2 year old son spent his entire life living in a hostel. The incredible turn out, with members coming from across London and even from as far as Slough, made this our biggest protest occupation so far. In response to our protest, Lewisham council finally gave Anabel and her son a 2 bedroom, self-contained temporary accommodation flat close to Anabel’s mother who helps with childcare. The new temporary accommodation is a huge improvement on the previous conditions the family were enduring.

Reel News video coming soon!

We don’t just take action on housing! When our long-term, dedicated member Ingrid told us how she’d been the victim of a heavy-handed e-bike seizure by police where 10 police officers surrounded her and called immigration enforcement on her, we took action in support of her. Ingrid uses her e-bike for her job as a delivery driver. Since the police took her e-bike, she had been unable to work which meant she did not have money to pay her rent and feed her kids. She had bought the bike from a shop right next to the police station a few years earlier. 

Straight after our housing meeting, over 50 of us – mostly women and babies – marched down to Walworth police station and occupied it calling for her bike to be immediately returned so that she is able to work again. The cops called more cops on us and forced us outside. Despite all of our best efforts, we were unable to get her e-bike returned to her. The police should not be targeting workers who are simply doing the best job they can in often precarious and exploitative working conditions. But if there is this response every time an e-bike is seized, the police will have to stop once and for all! 

One new member to our group sent us this whatsapp message: “today was my first day to come to the group meeting. I never expected to do a protest for an electric bike. It was an enjoyable day and i hope that bike gets returned to its owner as soon as possible.”

For over a year, London’s streets have regularly filled with hundreds of thousands and even millions of people demanding an end to the war on Gaza and calling for a free Palestine. These have been the biggest and most sustained protests of our lifetimes. In October HASL members joined the diverse and family-friendly march through a very sunny central London with hundreds of thousands of Londoners and others who had travelled from across the country to be there. As one of our of placards read, we strongly believe: “Nobody is free until everybody is free”.

31 HASL families have moved into social housing this year

HASL member with keys to his new home

With our support 31 HASL members and families have been able to move from temporary accommodation and other poor housing conditions into permanent social housing in their local communities. Last year, we supported 23 HASL families to get permanent social housing, so this is a significant increase and comes in a year when the housing crisis has been the worst we’ve ever experienced. We’re so happy for our members who have been able to move into secure social housing but we know the hardship and difficulties they suffered before they were finally able to get their new homes and the fight that it took them to get their homes. In HASL, we know how life-changing it is to have a permanent home in our local community and each victory inspires us to keep on fighting for the high-quality, safe, secure, family-sized council housing we all need and deserve.

One of our member’s stories

At a recent HASL meeting, we were able to record on our HASL grid “enjoying my new home” as an update from one of our members. She had come to our group last year with a section 21 no-fault eviction notice. Her and her family had already been through the homeless process before and Westminster council had discharged their homeless duty with private rented housing which she was now facing eviction from. She was very distressed at facing having to go through the homeless process again and worried about where the temporary accommodation would be and the impact this would have on her children’s education. We helped her to find a lawyer to help her check the validity of the section 21 notice. While looking over her housing file with her original homeless application, he noticed that the council had not completed all the paperwork to discharge her homeless duty. After hearing this, our member wanted to fight to get her old homeless duty and bidding account reinstated, as she was outraged at how badly Westminster had treated her family years before by abandoning them in the insecure private rented sector. She got her lawyer to defend the private sector eviction and also argue to the council that her homeless duty had not been ended. Our member and her lawyer issued her case against Westminster council in the High Court arguing that her original homeless duty was still active as it had not been properly ended. The council settled her case agreeing that they still owed a homeless duty to her and re-opening her bidding account, and months later she was able to bid successfully for a 3 bedroom council home.

Some of our members’ victories

Throughout the year we have been supporting members to learn and enforce their housing and homeless rights and providing each other with vital emotional and moral support. Our regular group meetings are the heart of our group where we give and receive moral and practical support on our housing cases and plan housing actions together. But outside of these meetings, on a daily basis HASL members are attending homeless assessments with members, helping to find good lawyers to challenge terrible homeless decisions, and doing court support.

This year, we’ve been at court supporting our members facing eviction on 8 occasions, and 6 of these times our members were successful in stopping the eviction. In two of the cases where possession was granted our members are taking appeals.

We have supported 12 HASL families to move from squalid, overcrowded, and sometimes even dangerous temporary accommodation into more suitable, spacious temporary accommodation. One of our members who had been living in a hotel with her two young children was moved to self-contained temporary accommodation a short walk from their primary school. She sent us a whatsapp message to update us: “Me and my kids just started living happier and comfortable because of you… all your sisterly and kindly support will stay in my heart and my entire life forever. Me and my kids are happy on this house!!”

As the homeless crisis has worsened, local councils have responded with even more aggressive gatekeeping to stop people from making homeless applications and getting the vital temporary accommodation they need. Over the year, we’ve supported 15 families to challenge unlawful gatekeeping and get them temporary accommodation.

Three families were facing being forced out of London to locations hundreds of miles away under the threat of destitution and we helped them to successfully fight this and remain in their communities in London. Two families were given private sector discharges to Halifax and Leicestershire, but we helped them both to get lawyers to successfully challenge these offers. Our member Hana said: “Together we win, I didn’t win alone, I had no hope before I found the group” Ayana was being forced by Tower Hamlets to Middlesbrough after they wrongly decided she did not have a local connection to Tower Hamlets (she did!) but they eventually reversed their decision with our community campaign.

At the start of the year, Edith’s family were left without heating and hot water in her family’s council home for two weeks. Edith’s young daughter Meghan is on dialysis daily for 12-13 hours and was due to have surgery to remove her second kidney when the boiler problems started. Southwark council repair workers were making visits to the flat but failed to fix the problem or give any time frame for when it would be fixed. After our tweet went viral and national media covered the case, suddenly Southwark council fixed the boiler within 24 hours so Meghan was able to return to a warm home after her surgery. We know that decades of funding cuts for social housing from central government means our social housing stock is being left to fall into disrepair – and putting lives at risk. But Southwark council showed that they can act quickly when they want to. Edith’s family are long-term members of our group and have been involved in an important group legal challenge (see below) as well as other legal challenges on their personal case this year fighting for the 4 bed council home their family need as well as supporting our campaigns for family-sized council homes for everyone.

Our member Patricia won an important High Court legal victory over Lambeth council after they removed 6 years waiting time from her housing register account when she separated from her husband. Such a cruel policy would potentially trap women with abusive partners for fear of losing their housing list waiting time if they were to leave. In Patricia’s case, the council’s actions would mean that her and her family would be trapped in temporary accommodation for years longer. But Patricia’s court case meant that Lambeth council were forced to back down and re-instate her housing waiting list time.

As well as housing problems, our members are routinely denied the benefits that they are entitled to. This year, we helped our member Elsa to reclaim a total of over £10,000 from housing benefit and Universal Credit as she was not receiving the correct amounts. Elsa’s different benefit issues show the massive underpayments councils and governments are able to get away with if people do not know their rights, and don’t have help to enforce them!

Our member Amira also took her PIP case to the Tribunal where she was eventually awarded the disability benefit that she needs to manage her complex and long-term health conditions. And we supported numerous other members through the stressful disability benefits process as well to ensure they receive the correct benefits.

HASL’s organising

HASL summer picnic in Burgess park

As well as running our huge group meetings twice a month we also helped to run 2 other monthly housing support meetings with our friends English for Action and Parent Action.

In response to our growing group and the complexity of the housing cases our members are facing, our organising team has also been running and participating in two extra sessions each month – our work session and our grid session – where we work on tasks and review cases together building our skills and knowledge. These extra sessions have been really important in helping to collectivise and share out the tasks and action points that come from our main support meetings.

We have run 3 training sessions over the year including a homeless rights training in English and Spanish to help refresh our memories, share our experiences, and develop our knowledge of our key homeless rights.

While it has been an incredibly busy and intense year for everyone, importantly we’ve made time to socialise together. Over 200 HASL members attended our annual summer picnic at Burgess Park on a windy Saturday in August where we enjoyed face painting, cup cake decorating, animal balloons and K-pop. The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the Eritrean feast, alongside a spread of delicious cakes, pizza, and treats generously shared by our members. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces as well as new ones. Of course, no HASL summer picnic would be complete without our spirited chants for 3, 4, and 5-bed council homes!

Throughout the year, we’ve been building our wider campaigns that come directly from the issues our members are facing including our campaigns on: 3, 4, 5 bed council homes, Too Long in Temporary, No More Overcrowding, ending private sector discharge, and raising the urgent housing needs of families with children with disabilities. We also have plans for a new campaign from our ever growing group of members without children who face the cruel priority need test, where they are regularly told by councils they are healthy enough to live on the streets. We will be calling on local councils to respect the DWP’s decision when someone is unable to work due to their health and award homeless assistance in these cases. Too often, we’ve seen members who the DWP accept cannot work due to long-term health conditions being told by councils that they are not in priority need which simply goes against all common sense.

Legal victory over Southwark council’s unlawful direct offer policy

Edith and her family were on the front page of the Southwark News for their legal challenge along with 2 other HASL families after social housing properties suddenly disappeared from Southwark Homesearch back in April with no explanation.

It was only in a Southwark News article on 7th June that the council let word slip out about their new direct offer policy. 

This is now the second time that HASL have caught Southwark council trying to make up their own housing waiting list rules without following the proper consultation process. On this occasion, this direct offer policy meant that there have been no homes for those in the highest housing need (such as living in statutory overcrowded housing conditions or having a severe medical need to move) to bid on and residents found themselves trapped in hazardous and intolerable conditions indefinitely.  

With the help of Public Interest Law Centre, 3 HASL families launched a legal challenge. In response to the legal letter sent by PILC, the council immediately stopped the unlawful direct offer policy and social homes finally returned to Southwark Homesearch housing register website.

Outreach

HASL members, Refurbish Don’t Demolish and Southwark Law Centre at ULC East

From the Chilean embassy, The Ivey House Pub, UCL East, and London Review of Books letters section, our members have been busy speaking about the housing crisis, and sharing our experiences, which go over a decade, of how we can organise for the high-quality council homes we all need. We’ve also participated in discussions about housing and organising on the Aylesbury estate, Mayday rooms and Anarchist bookfair. We joined our friends Lambeth Mutual Aid at their Solidarity Sunday session and we participated at the Homes for Us annual summit.   Our busy outreach diary this year reflects the growing interest in autonomous and grassroots housing action.

HASL’s FOI research on private sector discharge published in Guardian exclusive

Stop forcing homeless families out of London placard at our mass protest in April

HASL members sent Freedom of Information requests to every London council to find out how they are using the cruel and harmful policy of private sector discharge to gather information for our campaign to end private sector discharge. Our research was published in a Guardian exclusive where it held the number 1 position of ‘most read’ all morning and stayed at position number 4 for the afternoon. We were really energized and inspired to see how well received our research was.

You can read our full research here and our guide to private sector discharge here.

Just before our research was published, HASL hosted a London-wide action planning meeting on private sector discharge attended by over 30 people from 8 housing and social justice groups from across London.

Private sector discharge of homeless duties – Frequently Asked Questions

In our Frequently Asked Questions article below we answer the following questions about private sector discharge.

• What is private sector discharge?
• Why is private sector discharge so bad?
• Has private sector discharge always existed?
• Who does it affect?
• Where are these private sector offers?
• Do all local councils use it? 
• But maybe local councils use private sector discharge because they don’t have any other choice?
• How can we end private sector discharge for good?
• Our stories

What is private sector discharge?

Private sector discharge is when a local council uses their legal powers to end a homeless duty with a mandatory offer of private rented housing. Although it’s called an ‘offer’, applicants do not have a free choice of whether to accept. When a housing officer is using private sector discharge, they must give the homeless applicant a formal offer letter with details of the private rented housing and information about the consequences of accepting or refusing an offer. 

Things can get a bit confusing because sometimes housing officers will make offers of private rented housing to a homeless applicant that are not official private sector discharge offers. If you are made an offer of private housing by your housing officer and you are unsure whether it is a private sector discharge offer, please seek professional legal advice immediately

A local council can use their discharge powers at both the Relief Duty stage, and when someone has a Main Housing Duty. This means mandatory private offers can be made while a homeless application is still being assessed, or even after someone has been living in temporary accommodation for 10 years. 

When a housing officer makes an offer of private rented housing using private sector discharge powers, this is a mandatory offer that in most / almost all circumstances the homeless applicant must accept. The consequences for refusing are extremely serious (more on this below).

Why is private sector discharge so bad?

Private sector discharge takes away our homeless rights and forces vulnerable homeless people back into the private rented sector. As the private rented sector is the biggest cause of homelessness, private sector discharge creates a cycle of homelessness.

The forced nature of private sector discharge is very real and serious – if someone does not accept a private sector discharge offer, they can be left destitute as the council can end their homeless duty and evict them from their temporary accommodation.  If the person then tries to make a new homeless application, they may be found ‘intentionally homeless’ and refused the Main Homeless Duty.

Private sector discharge has fuelled social cleansing with some local councils using their private sector discharge powers to force homeless families outside of London. Waltham Forest and Enfield councils have a particularly bad reputation for their treatment of homeless families and they have both forced families over 300 miles away to Hartlepool.

Usually when someone is forced into the private rented sector outside of their home borough, their housing register bidding account will be permanently closed meaning that they are no longer able to apply for social housing. Even if you are discharged into your home borough, your position on the housing waiting list may be affected as you are no longer homeless. This shows how some councils use private sector discharge as a tactic to make their waiting lists shorter, which means that they deny people the chance of ever getting permanent council housing.

Homeless families are faced with constant worry and insecurity due to the threat of private sector discharge. Homeless families in temporary accommodation can be so scared of being targeted for a private sector offer that they may not report serious disrepair and hazards in their temporary accommodation causing them to be trapped in dangerous housing.

Has private sector discharge always existed?

No. The Conservative government first introduced these powers in 2012 as a way to try to end the vital link between homeless duties and social housing. Before private sector discharge was introduced the only way that local councils could end a homeless duty was with an offer of permanent social housing. We know that the only way to end homelessness is with social housing and the previous right to social housing for homeless households must be restored.

Who does it affect?

All homeless households who made homeless applications since 9th November 2012 can be affected by private sector discharge – although there is a huge variation in whether local councils use it at all and how they use it (more on this below).

If your homeless duty was started by an application made before 9th November 2012 then private sector discharge does not apply to you and the council can only end your homeless duty with an offer of permanent social housing.

From our experience, we’ve seen how private sector discharge is racist because migrant families, families of colour, and those who do not speak English as a first language are disproportionately targeted for private sector discharge. Housing officers will look for homeless applications who they see as ‘easy targets’ for private sector discharge and are less likely to know their rights and be able to enforce their rights. We also see that other households are targeted because they are seen as ‘difficult’ for rightly complaining about bad conditions in their temporary accommodation.

We obtained Freedom of Information request data from Lewisham council in 2020-2021 showing that single mums were being targeted for private sector discharge

Private sector discharge would be unjust and harmful even if it was applied equally, but it is even more dangerous because councils use it in such a discriminatory way.

Where are these private sector offers?

Some private sector discharge offers are in a homeless applicants home borough, or neighbouring borough. But from the very start of private sector discharge, we’ve seen some local councils use it as a social cleansing tool to force homeless families outside of London to towns and cities hundreds of miles away. From our own direct experience and using Freedom of Information requests, we’ve found out that local councils have been forcing homeless families outside of London to other cities and towns across the UK including Stoke, Hartlepool, and Durham.

Some councils have earned a reputation for their particularly cruel use of private sector discharge to far away cities and towns – Waltham Forest and Enfield councils have recently been forcing their homeless residents over 300 miles away to Hartlepool. 

Our FOI research has repeatedly found that (as you would expect) the further away an offer is, the more likely it will be rejected. Back in 2016, our Freedom of Information research showed that Brent council had offered the same 3 bed property in Telford to 11 different homeless families with each family refusing it.

These local councils are using their private sector discharge powers in particularly nasty ways against their homeless residents. It is clear that these local councils are not trying to provide suitable housing for some of their most vulnerable homeless families – they are making these offers knowing that they will be refused and families will end up destitute.  

When finding a private sector offer to discharge a homeless duty, councils are required to provide the nearest possible housing to their community. The housing officer should also take into account the household’s personal circumstances such as work, education and other welfare needs. There are also other conditions and standards that the council/housing officer must make sure that the private sector offer meets. It’s clear from the locations that people are being offered that local councils are not doing proper assessments and it may be possible to successfully challenge these offers – but this often relies on the homeless applicant being able to find a legal aid lawyer to help them with their case, which is becoming increasingly difficult due to legal aid cuts.

Do all local councils use it? 

No. Our latest research shows that at the moment 7 London councils do not use private sector discharge at all.

Some local councils use private sector discharge with particularly bad intentions such as Waltham Forest and Enfield, who have made hundreds of private sector offers which are outside of London in the last year.

Other local councils make very few private sector offers, which makes us wonder why they bother to use it at all and what process they have used to pick out these unlucky people.  

But maybe local councils use private sector discharge because they don’t have any other choice?

The fact that not every council uses private sector discharge shows that they do have a choice. The councils that are using private sector discharge are making a political choice to do so. There is nothing compelling local councils to use private sector discharge against their homeless applicants. They could allow their residents to remain in temporary accommodation with a Main Housing Duty and the important protections that this gives to homeless applicants.

Furthermore, the use of private sector discharge can increase the cost to councils in the long run, as it often results in people being evicted from the private tenancy. This means that councils have to take a fresh homeless application and use expensive pay-per-night emergency accommodation, rather than letting people stay in longer term temporary accommodation.

Some councils try to say that their out of London offers are a result of the benefit cap meaning that nowhere in London is affordable for families affected by the benefit cap. But as was pointed out in a recent legal case, when a family is in temporary accommodation, they receive housing benefit and are not impacted by the benefit cap. By using private sector discharge against these families, councils are guaranteeing that they will be at risk of the benefit cap when they would be better off remaining in temporary accommodation.

Waltham Forest Council and Enfield councils’ extreme use of private sector discharge is thankfully not followed by other local councils. This shows that their cruel approach is certainly a political and ideological choice. There is no other justification for why they have both made hundreds of private sector offers outside of London when no other London councils have done this.  

Local councils also have the choice to stand with their residents at the sharpest end of the housing crisis and to challenge and campaign alongside them for homeless rights and for the huge investment in council housing that we desperately need. We have seen very little, if any, evidence of this over the last 14 years of austerity.

How can we end private sector discharge for good?

Every day across London, local housing action groups such as Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth, Haringey Housing Action Group, Focus E15 are supporting our members with homelessness and housing problems with mutual support and collective action. This includes fighting private sector discharge when our members are affected by this. If you’re not already involved in your local housing action group, we encourage you to join one to learn your rights, help us build collective support and solidarity, and campaign together for our homeless rights and for the high-quality council homes we all need and deserve! 

As well as fighting private sector discharge on a case by case basis, we want to end this cruel and harmful policy for good so that no one ever lives with the fear or faces the reality of being forced from their community and pushed into a cycle of homelessness.

From the very start of private sector discharge, it has been fiercely resisted. Back in 2013, in response to private sector discharge offers by Newham council to places as far away as Manchester and Birmingham, the Focus E15 campaign emerged with their inspiring slogan ‘Social Housing Not Social Cleansing’. At the time, their campaign achieved immediate successes of stopping their members from being socially cleansed from London and has also continued to win wider victories with Newham residents including ending Newham council’s use of out-of-London private sector discharge offers. 

Over 10 years later, the Focus E15 slogan is even more urgent as councils increasingly use private sector discharge and as the locations get even further away.

Using the decades of organising experience of our local housing action groups, we want to build on the campaign started by Focus E15 and the individual victories our groups have achieved, and help to coordinate a London-wide campaign to end private sector discharge for good. Stay in touch with us to get updates and ways to be involved in this campaign.

Our stories

Comments from Haringey Housing Action Group member ‘Destiny’

I asked Enfield for help months before my eviction date, but they didn’t do anything. I went back to them on the day the bailiffs came, but they left me and my kids homeless on the streets. After three weeks of homelessness, they finally agreed to put us in a hotel. They left us there for seven months. We don’t have a kitchen, and we have to travel one and a half hours each way for school.

Then they offered me a private sector discharge in Stoke on Trent. My daughter is in her A-level year but they didn’t care. They said I should be grateful they chose Stoke on Trent, because some families are being sent seven hours away. I got legal help and Enfield withdrew that offer, but I don’t know where they will try to send me next. 

We’ve lived in Enfield for twelve years but they still want to put me outside London. I know people round here, my friends and family are all local, but they want to leave me isolated. The way they treat people is horrible. I’ve gone through a lot already, I’m so stressed. Every day I still have to spend three hours taking my kids to and from school. It’s bad now, but I’m scared that they will try to send us somewhere even worse.

‘Destiny’ 

*name has been changed for privacy

Hundreds of homeless families deliver eviction notice to Michael Gove over record-breaking homeless statistics

On 11^th April, homeless families and families living in overcrowded housing used their school holiday to raise the alarm on the housing emergency and the record-breaking homelessness statistics which include 142,490 homeless kids in England.

We gathered in St John’s Gardens before marching to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities where we tried to deliver an eviction notice to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for presiding over the biggest homeless crisis in the country’s history. The eviction notice warns that in order to avoid eviction, Michael Gove and his government must commit to: “A council housing revolution of high-quality, safe, secure, family-sized 3, 4, 5 bed council homes that our communities need and deserve.”

There were 300 of us making this our biggest ever protest and the biggest protest of homeless families that London has seen in at least a decade.

Unfortunately, at the staff entrance to the building, they shut the automatic door so that we could not deliver our eviction notice. Locked outside the building, we made lots of noise and sang chants with our demands – “How many rooms do we need to thrive? 3-4-5! 3-4-5!” and “Michael Gove, hear us say, homelessness must end today”. HASL children demolished a squalid temporary accommodation pinata in front of the entrance to remind the Department for Housing and Michael Gove that temporary accommodation should not exist because we should all have the high-quality, safe, secure council homes we need and deserve!

We marched around the building to another entrance of the Department for Housing and attempted to deliver our eviction notice again but we were told this would not be possible because it’s a security threat as it has not been scanned and our letter was too big to fit in the scanner. HASL children still had plenty of strength and energy left to demolish our housing waiting list pinata. Staff came to the windows to watch us from the building, so we’re sure they saw our clear messages on our brightly coloured banners: We need 3, 4, 5 bed council homes – too long in temporary – a home close to school – 142,490 homeless kids

It was a really powerful, strong and determined protest. Most of our members are from south London, but we had families travelling from across London to join us (because they have been housed in temporary accommodation in other parts of London or because their friends had invited them to join our protest) and our sister groups Haringey Housing Action Group and English for Action also joined us.

Afterwards, we went to Vauxhall where over 100 of us had tea, juice and cake together to celebrate our group’s 11th birthday.

There has been some amazing press coverage of our protest.

We love this video by Reel News of our protest

Our protest was the lead story on ITV London news

South London Press

My London

The Big Issue

Left Foot Foward

A bit more about why were are protesting and campaigning for the family-sized council homes we need and deserve!

In the last year, the housing emergency has spiralled to devastating new heights causing unimaginable suffering with children bearing the brunt of this. Use of cramped, hazardous hotel accommodation has soared to record breaking levels meaning families cannot eat hot and fresh food for weeks and months on end. Families are being forced out of London. And homeless families are facing being made homeless yet again with an increase in private landlords requesting their properties back. Earlier this year statistics from the End Child Mortality Database, found that living in temporary accommodation was a factor that had contributed to the deaths of 55 children over the last five years.

HASL has seen how life-changing it has been for families when they have finally been able to move into secure, good quality council housing in their communities. Yet, unfortunately, family-sized council homes are not being delivered. Analysis by London Tenants Federation of data on the delivery of one, two, three and four-plus low-cost bedroom-sized homes from 2012 to 2022 on the Greater London Authority’s residential completions dashboard showed that only 2,465 four-bedroom plus homes were delivered from 2012-22 compared to a total of 21,997 (61 per cent) one and two-bed low-cost rented homes.

Meanwhile, overcrowding in social housing is at record levels with families trapped in 1 and 2 bed social homes unable to move into bigger homes. These 1 and 2 bed social homes would be freed up if overcrowded families were able to move into larger homes showing how the focus on building new 1 and 2 bed homes and ignoring 3, 4, 5 bed needs is misplaced.

Analysis in 2021 by Home Connections, a not-for-profit organisation which provides a platform that advertises council homes for those on council waiting lists stated: “We need a higher number of properties with three or more bedrooms, appropriate for larger families waiting for a social home”.

Elizabeth Wyatt, a member of HASL said:

“This devastating housing emergency is ruining the lives of over 140,000 children in England. And this is a political choice that has been made by this government for the last 14 years and it is absolutely unforgivable. But this can be turned around, it’s really that simple, we can solve the homeless crisis instantly with investment and expansion of high-quality, safe, secure, family-sized council homes that our communities need and deserve. After decades of neglect of council housing, the situation has got so dire that urgent, radical action is needed.”

HASL’s 2023 end of year blog!

This year, we celebrated our 10th birthday with over 300 of our members! This is an incredible achievement for a member-run organisation of homeless families and individuals and others struggling with housing problems. But this year has been the hardest we have ever faced in terms of the housing crisis.

The housing emergency has reached terrifying levels we couldn’t imagine and we’re seeing problems that we’ve never encountered before which are further fuelling the homelessness crisis. The new problems we are seeing have included:

• Hotels are not housing! It is becoming standard practice for families to be given hotels as emergency accommodation with councils regularly breaking the 6 week limit. But even the 6 week limit is too generous. No one should be housed without basic cooking facilities.
• We’re regularly seeing families in self-contained temporary accommodation get eviction notices from the private landlord who wants the property back. This means families who are already homeless face homelessness yet again!
• The legal aid crisis means we can’t find legal aid housing lawyers to take on new cases – including urgent eviction cases. We’re spending lots of our time at the moment just contacting legal aid lawyers to try to find a lawyer with capacity.
• There’s been a huge increase in homeless families being forced out of London, far away from their lives and communities. Whilst this has been a political choice for some councils like Waltham Forest over the last decade, now more councils are sending families to places we’ve never heard of.
• In response to soaring homelessness, local councils are returning to aggressive gatekeeping tactics and making harsher decisions against vulnerable homeless people.
• Many of our members are also stuck on hospital waiting lists unable to get the medical care that they need whilst at the same time being denied the disability benefits to meet their basic needs.

Despite all of this, our members have been tirelessly supporting each other, campaigning and fighting together for the high-quality council homes we all need and deserve!

This year, our group meetings regularly had well over 100 people attending, with many of our members facing urgent housing problems. For the first half of the year our extremely dedicated organising team put lots of our energies into learning to facilitate such large meetings and by the second half of the year our large meetings were running pretty smoothly. It was vital that we put so much energy into learning to adapt and facilitate these huge meetings as our group meetings are the heart of HASL where we provide collective support and plan housing action together.

As well as running our huge group meetings twice a month we also helped to run 2 other monthly housing support meetings with our friends English for Action and Parents and Communities Together.  We organised a protest of over 50 HASL members outside the Royal Courts of Justice showing our solidarity for an important homeless case taken by a single mother who was forced out of London. At short notice, we quickly mobilised to respond to Lambeth council’s housing waiting list consultation to fight for better rights for homeless households and families in overcrowded housing.  We led a successful campaign to demand that a housing association stop their racist eviction of one of our members. We have worked with other grassroots groups and organisations sharing information on housing rights and our experiences of organising. We have helped our members to understand and enforce their housing and homeless rights which has stopped evictions and helped members facing unlawful gatekeeping to get temporary accommodation. With our support 23 HASL members and their families have been able to move from temporary accommodation and other poor housing conditions into permanent social housing. 

Every day across south London (and sometimes beyond!) we are supporting people to understand and enforce their housing rights, we let people know that they are not alone, and we campaign for the high-quality council homes we all need and deserve.

A big thank you to all our HASL members and supporters for your continued support. Our group is run by our members and the group would not function without everyone’s participation. Thank you to everyone who has helped in any way – participating in our group meetings, helping with translation/interpretation, telling friends about the group, liking our social media posts, joining protests, cooking us delicious food, and so much more! We’ve also loved working together with our friends Public Interest Law Centre, English for Action, Z2K (for their excellent and expert disability benefits advice), Parents and Communities Together (PACT), Lambeth Mutual Aid, and many other groups and new friends we’ve made over the year.

We hope everyone can have a good rest over the winter holidays and we’re looking forward to returning with even more energy, strength and solidarity in the new year!

Here are some of our 2023 highlights.

Protesting for homeless rights and council housing

Back in July, a homeless single mother – who had been forced to take a property over 100 miles away – was taking her case against Waltham Forest council to the Court of Appeal with the help of Hackney Community Law Centre. On the morning of this important court case over 50 HASL members gathered outside the court to show their support for the family and for homeless rights for everyone. We held banners and placards with our slogans: “A Home Close to School”, “No More Long Journeys to School”, “Waltham Forest – Stop Forcing Homeless Families Out of London”! It was an incredible show of support for homeless rights. We spoke with journalists from the Guardian, the BBC, and local Waltham Forest press. You can see some press coverage here and here. 

Disappointingly the decision by the Court of Appeal said it is OK for homeless single mums and their kids to be torn from their communities and sent over 100 miles away. But whatever the law says – we know that the very least every child should have is a Home Close to School! No one should be forced out of their community. We will keep on campaigning and fighting for the high quality council homes our communities need and deserve!

July was a busy month for protesting – HASL had also been on the streets the week before with Aylesbury estate tenants and other local residents for a march from Elephant and Castle down the Walworth Road to the Aylesbury Estate – standing strong against numerous downpours of rain! This protest was part of Housing Rebellion’s National Day of Action. Our message to Southwark council was: Our council housing is precious and there is huge need for more council homes – there is no excuse for demolishing the Aylesbury!

Some nice photos here and here videos here and here Press coverage of the protest featuring a HASL member here

Over 100 responses to Lambeth council’s housing waiting list consultation

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. After a legal challenge by PILC, this deadline has now been extended to 19^th January 2024. 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. Please do keep on using and sharing 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 detailed response on our website here.

For a decade, HASL members in temporary accommodation have been campaigning against being trapped ‘Too Long in Temporary’. The fact that Lambeth council have now 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!

HASL’s 10^th Birthday

We celebrated our 10^th birthday in April with our biggest ever social event attended by over 300 HASL members! Thanks to the amazing organising skills of our members we had delicious healthy food for everyone, lots of birthday cake, kids activities, face painting, film making, henna, and of course our temporary accommodation pinata! It was a really special event celebrating with old and new HASL members. There are some photos here.

Our birthday celebration was followed by our next big social event in August – our summer picnic which was attended by 200 people and which also reached record breaking numbers: 90 slices of pizza, 10kg of injera, 100+ empanadas, 7 cakes (with one weighing 5kg!), 6 hours of non-stop face painting, 42 cupcakes for decorating, and 1 housing waiting list account fixed!

We stopped a racist eviction and won permanent social housing!

At the start of the year our member was facing a racist eviction by Optivo/Southern housing. After our campaign and legal action, our member finally moved into a beautiful permanent social home in his local community this summer! You can read more in our blog post here. Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign which saw almost 300 email letters sent to Optivo’s/Southern CEO!

Some of our members’ victories

All throughout the year we have been supporting members to learn and enforce their housing and homeless rights and providing each other with vital emotional and moral support. We have buddied our members at their homeless assessments, helped them to find good lawyers to challenge terrible homeless decisions, helped our members to challenge unsuitable temporary accommodation, and helped them get their correct position on the housing waiting list. We have attended court 2 times with our members facing eviction to provide them with moral support through the stressful eviction process – and we also gave practical support to 4 other people going to court facing eviction. In 4 of the cases, the eviction was stopped and the two other cases are still continuing. We have also been helping members complete the defence forms within the strict 14 day deadline for Sectoin 21 evictions (when a lawyer cannot be found quick enough). One of these has already resulted in the landlord withdrawing the possession claim!

With our support 23 HASL members and families have been able to move from temporary accommodation and other poor housing conditions into permanent social housing. We’re so happy for our members who have been able to move into secure social housing but we know the hardship and difficulties they suffered before they were finally able to get their new homes. In HASL, we know how life-changing it is to have a permanent home in our local community and each victory inspires us to keep on fighting for the high-quality, safe, secure, family-sized council housing we all need and deserve.

Fighting for ‘A Home Close to School’ has been a long running HASL campaign making sure that homeless families are given temporary accommodation in their local area. Patricia and her family were housed by Lambeth council in temporary accommodation outside of London in Basildon. The long commute meant that Patricia lost her job in Lambeth and her children faced hours each day travelling to school whilst one of her son’s was trying to study for his GCSEs. With the help of a housing lawyer and by speaking out to the press about her case, including international media, Lambeth council suddenly found the family temporary accommodation back in Lambeth. This was a huge relief for the family, especially for her son whose GCSE exams where about to start.

A new member came to our group when her homeless duty had been ended for failing to accept a private rented property in Stoke on Trent. With just one day before the Appeal deadline, we helped her to get housing lawyers to take her Appeal. After the Appeal was lodged in the court, the council withdrew their decision and her and her toddler have been re-housed in suitable temporary accommodation here in London. 

A very old member of the group – who was involved in our successful Lambeth legal challenge and campaign when Lambeth unlawfully removed hundreds of families off the housing waiting list – finally moved into a 4 bed council home back in Lambeth this winter. This would never have happened if he and other HASL families had not taken legal action and launched a campaign against Lambeth council when they were wrongly kicked off the housing waiting list.

A HASL member who had spent over a decade in temporary accommodation recently moved into a 3 bed social housing home came to the group to share her news and told us:

“It’s a beautiful home. I waited 11 years in temporary accommodation being evicted 6 times. I never imagined I would get such a beautiful home in this country. I didn’t have anyone to support me apart from this group. I don’t have any family here. The group was my family. When it was Christmas, I had to go to court and they came to court with me and supported me when I had no one else.”

Fighting for our rights to disability benefits: HASL 5 – DWP 0

Homelessness and other terrible housing conditions and long NHS waiting lists, along with other factors means that many of our members are experiencing long-term ill health and struggling with disabilities. We’ve been supporting our members to access the disability benefits that they need but are regularly refused by the DWP.

With the help of the amazing Z2K disability benefits experts, 5 of our members have been successful at the Disability Tribunal and won the disability benefits they need. The DWP make claiming disability benefits unnecessarily cruel and difficult and it has often taken over 1 year before our members received the benefits they should have been entitled to all along.

The fight for disability benefits can also be an important step in getting the main homeless duty and long-term temporary accommodation. Single people face the cruel prioirty need test which lets councils say people are helthy enough to live on the streets. Once a member obtains disability benefits, it makes it harder for the council to refuse a person homeless assistance. One of our members has got a full homeless duty this year after we helped her to get the disability element of Universal Credit.

Outreach and workshops

Throughout the year, we have been busy meeting up and making links with other community groups and social justice organisations and campaigners so that we can learn from each other and find ways to work together.

Back in March, Public Interest Law Centre helped to co-ordinate a meeting at Sylvia’s Corner of grassroots homeless groups including us, Focus E15, Streets Kitchen, and Museum of Homelessness to reflect on our current struggles and look at the issues we face in the future. Together, we had decades of experience of grassroots housing organising to share with each other!

We ran a workshop reflecting on our 10 years of organising mutual support and collective action on homelessness and housing at the incredible Fight4Aylesbury council home exhibition in May. We were invited to speak on a panel about homelessness at the Junior HLPA event for people interested in becoming legal aid lawyers alongside the brilliant Project 17. We were really excited to visit our friends Magpie Project out in East London where we met their Reach campaign team and shared our experiences of campaigning together and tried to answer their really thoughtful questions. We visited east London again to go to the UCL East campus where we spoke with students on a great panel which included our friends Public Interest Law Centre and London Tenants Federation where we discussed organising on housing in London and the strengths and limitations we face. All of the events had really engaged audiences and interesting questions which is a really promising sign for the London housing movement.

In October, along with our friends Lambeth Mutual Aid we helped to organise the London premiere of A Bedroom for Everyone – a short animation film looking at the UK’s housing movement which features HASL!

It was great to join the first London Radical Bookfair since 2019. HASL had a very colourful stall with HASL stickers, badges, fridge magnets, posters, and pamphlets. We had lots of good engagement from people speaking about the housing crisis and about our group. 

Some of our other activities

In January, we joined the inspiring nurses picket outside King’s College hospital. The NHS is very close to HASL’s heart. Members of our group who are living in temporary accommodation, overcrowded and other poor housing also work in the NHS as cleaners, nurses and healthcare assistants. Many of our members are also patients, some are struggling to access the high-quality care they need and are stuck on long waiting lists. We need high quality council housing and high quality health care for everyone!

We started 2023 strongly, running two training sessions with our members covering homeless rights and how to effectively run our support groups. Later in the year, we ran another homeless rights training in Spanish. And we had our fourth training learning housing rights through looking at case studies together. We’ve also started running monthly work sessions where we can work on tasks together to build our skills and learn new ones.  

We have been building a campaign with our sister group Haringey Housing Action Group against private sector discharge which is where homeless families have their homeless duty ended with private sector housing. When this happens, families lose their homeless rights (such as the ability to request a suitability review) and usually their chance to bid for social housing on the housing waiting list. And then after a short period of time, they face eviction and end up back at the housing office. HASL and HHAG have had meetings discussing our direct experiences and also tactics of how to fight it and are currently working on Freedom of Information request research to help build our campaign.

One of our members also organised HASL’s first ever seaside trip for our HASL organisers and family members with over 50 of us heading to the coast by coach for a wonderful day trip.

Our long read article about our successful campaign with families in some of Southwark’s most overcrowded housing was published in Justice Gap.

Post-training ice cream

End of year blog!

It’s been our busiest year yet! Our regular meetings have had 50-90 members attending all facing immediate housing problems. We’re still learning how to organise ourselves in such large numbers and we’re really thankful to all our members for their patience, co-operation, support and commitment to helping run these meetings as smoothly as possible. We couldn’t do it without you! It’s at our fortnightly group meetings where so much of our group support, information sharing, organising, action planning, and socialising happens as this means we can draw on all of our experience and knowledge.

 

It has been the involvement and support of our members that have helped us to achieve so much this year. It’s really inspiring seeing our members learn their housing rights, sharing this information with others and supporting each other’s cases and the work of the group as we grow. We’re building a really strong network of people across our boroughs where we support each other with housing and other poverty problems and work on them together.

 

We’ve seen so many of our housing situations improve with the support of the group, our group meetings are running really well, we’ve had some amazing parties, we’re building local campaigns in our boroughs, our kids activities and co-ordination is improving, and we’re making good links with other organisations (such as the Public Interest Law Centre) to support each others work. We know that the housing crisis in London means so many people are suffering every day from homelessness, overcrowding and other housing problems, but we know that by sticking together, we can fight for the good quality, safe, secure homes in our communities that we all need. We’re already got lots of plans and ideas for 2019!

 

Here are just some of the things we’ve been up to this year. HASL members, let us know if we’ve missed your highlight!

 

January

Our first meeting of the year was a busy one with 50 people attending!

Our member H, a single mother who is a refugee, was facing eviction from Southwark council temporary accommodation. Through twitter pressure from the group and help from Southwark Law Centre, the council confirmed that they would not be evicting her and that she had a full homeless duty. After a year and a half living in hostel accommodation, the council also provided her with good temporary accommodation in a self-contained flat in the local area.

We joined two protests at Southwark Council’s Tooley street HQ against the demolition of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre – we need our community spaces and leisure facilities, cafes, and bingo!

February

 

We organised a small group training session for some of our members in Spanish to talk about how to help run the group – we’re hoping to run more of these skill share sessions so that we can share ideas of how we can help the group run more effectively.

 

We showed our support for the women in Yarls Wood who were on hunger strike demanding freedom and dignity. Many of our members’ lives are affected by harmful immigration controls and rules that seek to exclude us from vital services (including housing) and push us into poverty.

Our youngest member yet attended our meeting, a 5 day old baby!

 

 

March

 

Council housing celebration meet up – a number of our members recently got keys and their council tenancy so we met up to celebrate as well as talk about the practicalities of moving home, problems with Universal Credit, and some of their new and important rights as council tenants.

 

A very busy HASL kids club with a workshop for adults explaining about bidding for council housing.

 

One of our long term members secured a council home after a long struggle. She is a survivor of domestic violence and had been homeless for almost 2 years. It was a really long struggle and it should never be this way, but it was wonderful news.

We were able to achieve this together by buddying, group support and finding good lawyers, our friends at the Public Interest Law Centre and an incredible amount of determination from our member.

 

April

 

Our member F, a homeless survivor of domestic violence, was being denied temporary accommodation by Southwark council. Thanks to twitter pressure we were able to help her secure the temporary accommodation she desperately needed.

Our meetings kept on growing and so have people’s contributions – plates of food arrived at our meeting, we had fresh luxury bread and brownies, and our kids care team were wonderful.

 

May

 

We protested at Lambeth council in support of our member Ruben and all overcrowded families. A month later, Ruben heard from Lambeth that he had been placed higher up on the housing register where he would be able to bid successfully for council housing.

We ran a small group workshop for our members about hostel accommodation and what their rights are. Lots of our members, especially Southwark members, have been being housed in hostel accommodation over the 6 week limit (which applies to B&B hostel accommodation that is privately run).

 

Our blog on the Homelessness Reduction Act (which came into force on 3rd April)

 

June

 

At our meeting we spoke about the Grenfell tragedy, the need for justice and how we must demand secure, safe good quality council homes for everyone.

We had a stall at the London Radical Bookfair in Lewisham where we talked with people about housing rights and the group.

We organised a small group meet up for families in overcrowded housing to learn their rights and make plans on their cases.

 

Southwark council were trying to evict our member L from temporary accommodation. We buddied her at the housing office and with a combination of twitter pressure and determination at the housing office, we were able to ensure that the council provided new temporary accommodation for her.

A private landlord stolen our member’s son’s bike and was threatening to destroy it! We contacted him in support of our member and got him to agree to return the bike undamaged. This is why we fight together for good quality council homes.

 

We supported our member at court who was challenging a possession order from their private landlord.

 

July

 

We joined another protest to support Elephant and Castle shopping centre against developer Delancy and Southwark council’s disastrous plans for it.

We went to the Edinburgh Anarchist Feminist Bookfair where we joined a workshop on housing campaigns and organising.

Our member F was facing eviction from temporary accommodation. With the support of lawyers and a twitter storm, we were able to secure her temporary accommodation.

 

August

 

Summer picnic in Burgess park

Really big summer bank holiday meeting! We started the meeting sharing lots of recent successes which is a great way to start!

September

 

HASL goes global! An interview with us was translated into Japanese!

 

We ran another council tenancy rights workshop and celebration with our members who recently got their keys and contracts.

 

HASL surprise birthday party for one of our members!

October

 

Our member D was facing eviction from Southwark council temporary accommodation due to rent arrears caused by Universal Credit. A public twitter storm helped to stop it and we’ve been working with our member with the support of Southwark Law Centre to resolve the Universal Credit issues.

 

Southwark council – stop evicting people from temporary accommodation! Our blog post and demand.

 

Southwark council have been trying to evict homeless families from temporary accommodation for rent arrears caused by problems with Universal Credit. We’re demanding that the council stop all evictions from temporary accommodation. Homeless families need support and council homes – not evictions!

We’ve supported 6 families this year who were threatened with eviction by Southwark council for rent arrears. The eviction threats caused the families great distress.

 

Southwark council overcrowding victory with our friends Public Interest Law Centre!

 

Read this great article featuring our member Maryuri talking about her and her family’s experience of overcrowded housing and her successful legal challenge against Southwark council with us and Public Interest Law Unit.

We’re so proud of all of our members who have been campaigning on overcrowding and other housing issues and we’re seeing some good results!

 

Another HASL-PILC success as our member V and his family are given band 2 on Southwark’s housing register after we supported them to review the council’s original negative decision.

 

November

 

We attended the Rebel Law Conference and the SolFed conference talking about our housing organising and campaigning.

 

We supported our member in court. She is a Lambeth resident facing a section 21 no-fault eviction from her private landlord. We provided practical and moral support for our member. Going to court with the fear of losing your home is a very stressful experience. Don’t struggle alone, join your local housing action group!

Due to a factual dispute, the judge was unable to make a decision on the case and there will be another hearing in the new year. We will continue to support our member with her case and we will be back then to support our member to keep her home!

 

We attended an incredibly helpful and clear Homelessness Reduction Act training with LCAP supporter Lou, from Miles and Partners solicitors.

 

December

 

Our end of year celebration was a massive success. It was wonderful to see so many old and new faces and celebrate everything we’ve achieved this year. We had so much delicious food and cake and the children painted an awesome banner with one of our main demands ‘We need 3, 4, 5 bed council homes’. Our last meeting of the year was also really special thanks to our members’ efforts and surprises!

 

Our member L is a survivor of domestic violence who has been battling Southwark council for a full homeless duty. We’ve been supporting her with her case and when Southwark council threatened to evict her from temporary accommodation, our twitter pressure helped to extend her temporary accommodation.

 

We’re supporting our member Susana to stop Lambeth from kicking her off the housing register as part of our wider campaign against Lambeth’s unfair treatment of homeless families. Our members Susana and Flavia made this brilliant video explaining Lambeth’s trick that they target homeless families with.

Disrepair and Disrespect – Struggling with Southwark Council

We’ve been documenting the unacceptable, and often unlawful, ways in which Southwark Council treats those it has a duty of care to for some time now. This pattern of behaviour becomes increasingly and unsettlingly familiar with each new case we encounter.

Recently, L approached HASL. She has been living with her family in social housing provided by Southwark for 22 years. L has been battling with Southwark Council for the entire time – to try and get essential repair work done on the property and to be treated with respect. In attempting to make Southwark realise the severity of the problems, L has received backing from solicitors and a number of experts regarding the problems within the property. The family have been repeatedly moved out of the property for “repairs to be made” only to return to the same problems and the same poor attitude from Southwark. Attempts to make the property safe have been met with inadequate offers of alternative accommodation and coercion from Southwark.

L sought the advice and support of a new solicitor who progressed to presenting court proceedings to get the disrepair addressed. In the end, L made a successful bid for another property nearby. On moving into her new property, unfortunately a few snagging repairs requirements are outstanding – an issue we’re now working together to try and solve.

L believes, as do we, that no-one should have to face this kind of treatment. Everyone deserves access to secure and safe housing, and it should be the absolute minimum requirement that housing providers should treat their tenants with a sense of basic decency and respect. Instead, L who already faces the stress and complication of long term chronic health conditions has been met with intimidation, racist and classist prejudice and an irrevocable, irreparable and unfair service. We will be working together to make sure Southwark Council are held accountable for their behaviour in dealing with L’s housing situation.

Many of the problems we’ve encountered with Southwark Council are not isolated to individuals. Are you a Southwark council tenant facing similar issues of disrepair or mistreatment? These are conditions no-one should be expected to face, and they definitely shouldn’t have to be faced alone.

Get in touch – Come along to one of our meetings, or come share some food with us on Sunday at our lunch club. Over the last 2 years, we’ve demonstrated that we can win better housing, when we do it together. Join your local housing action group! 

HASL Response to Chuka Umunna, Tessa Jowell & Lib Peck

As residents of Southwark and Lambeth, we were disappointed (if not wholly surprised) to learn that the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, received a jointly signed letter earlier this week from the Head of Lambeth Council, Lib Peck; MP for Streatham, Chuka Umunna; and MP for Dulwich & West Norwood, Tessa Jowell, calling for the criminalisation of squatting to be extended to commercial properties.

The further demonisation of squatting, in a climate of increasing desperation and homelessness, couldn’t come at a more unwelcome time. Many residents across Southwark and Lambeth are increasingly struggling to keep up with the rising costs of living and, in far too many cases, to keep a roof over their heads. The squatting community has traditionally been a key component in providing a lifeline to those with nowhere else to turn.

There are thousands of empty buildings across London, many of which have been deliberately left for long periods of time. It would be far more preferable for these to be put to use by people who have nowhere else to live, rather than creating an entirely new criminal class of Londoners who are guilty of nothing more than being forced into poverty. If politicians are serious about reducing levels of squatting and trying to solve the root causes of something they present as a problem, they would be demanding and implementing the construction of truly affordable social housing and regulating the amount of rent private landlords can charge instead of pushing tenants out of particular boroughs, without much in the way of support, in the hope of attracting more affluent residents.

We only need to look at developments across our two boroughs in recent times for evidence of the ongoing process which this letter was attempting to strengthen: Entire communities are being broken apart; we have seen Lambeth Council aggresively pursuing residents who have fallen into rent arrears due to the imposition of the Bedroom Tax; we have witnessed the total destruction of the community at the Heygate Estate, against the wishes of its residents (some of whom were rehoused miles away from the area); residents of Rushcroft Road, Brixton, were violently evicted from their homes so that Lambeth Council could make a quick buck on the sale of the land; and house prices and rents rise ever higher and higher.

What this letter really emphasised was the immense gulf between the people who live in Southwark and Lambeth, and those politicans who claim to represent them. It is clear that if our ‘respresentatives’ had any real understanding of the lives and struggles of the people who live in their constitutencies, and if they had any pretence of representing their wishes, the last thing on their minds would be attempting to drive yet more people from their homes.

Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth is a relatively new group made up of residents of two boroughs who are working together to combat some of the problems that residents face; many of whom have been completely abandoned by the institutions which have a duty of care over them. We live the experience of Southwark and Lambeth residents. When we meet, we listen to each other’s concerns. We attempt to offer support, both moral and legal, to those who are finding themselves on the vicious end of an austerity climate that we did nothing to cause. We share in stories of the latest way in which housing offices have lied to us, misled us and threatened us. Everyone we meet is worried about where they will live when they can no longer afford to live in their current home. We are all struggling to make the next rent payment. The criminalisation of squatting does absolutely nothing to help with any of these conditions which rather begs the question: if our elected representative are seeking legislation against their constituents’ interests, exactly whose interests are they working for?

Lambeth Housing Office’s Multiple Failures Leaves HASL Member on the Streets

Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth have been supporting one of our members who is currently homeless to get emergency accommodation from Lambeth Council. His personal situation means that he should have placed into emergency accommodation immediately, and supported in finding longer term accommodation, however staff at the housing office have on numerous occasions failed to ensure that this occurs. He is now sleeping rough on the streets whilst the housing office continue to fob him and HASL off. We are deeply concerned about our friend and also about the conduct of some of the staff in the housing office and their inability to follow basic procedures and fulfil their duty to house people.

Below we outline the multiple occasions on which Lambeth housing office staff have not followed the correct procedure for supporting a vulnerable homeless person.

As a housing action and support group we are learning about our housing rights together as we go along. This has meant that on this occasion, as we are still learning, the housing office has got away with a lot. However, we are learning fast. We have learnt that the housing office will lie to your face, treat you with disrespect, and do everything they can not to house you. This will probably come as no surprise to those who have had to deal with them before. The support HASL has provided for our friend has meant that through these interactions, there has often been another HASL person to watch his back.

Visit to housing office number 1:

Visit to register for priority homelessness. Told that he is not in priority need and therefore is not given emergency accommodation. Told that they will pass on his medical information (which strongly makes the case for priority need) to be reviewed by someone else. Sent away without anything.

What should have happened

He should have been accepted immediately as priority need homeless and provided with emergency accommodation. The Shelter emergency housing rights checker confirms this as did a Shelter case worker.

Not having done this, they should have given him emergency accommodation whilst they are reviewing the case. Civil Law Advice are interested in pursuing a judicial review against Lambeth’s decision not to do this.

They should also have informed him that if they do not deem him in priority need, they will issue him with a section 184 notification which he can give to a housing association he is in contact with to prove that he is homeless.

Visit number 2:

Having learnt from Shelter that he does indeed fulfil the criteria for priority need homelessness, he returned with someone else from HASL to see if they could query this and get the emergency accommodation needed. After waiting for over two hours in the housing office we spoke with someone we were told was a manager. She dismissed Shelter’s assessment – “they’re a lobby group, of course they say you’re priority, they say everyone is…we’re the council, we’re professionals, we act on the facts” – and then said very rudely and bluntly “in my opinion you are not priority need”. She said threatening that we were lucky enough that someone from their office was reviewing the medical evidence. It seemed if we pushed it much more she would just drop it altogether. We asked what he was to do tonight as he had nowhere to go. She told us that if he is on the streets, he can call the Lambeth Safe Street Team and they will come and check on him. He was told to call up to find out about the decision which would be made within the next two days.

What should have happened

Well, of course she should have looked into his case and come to the same conclusion as Shelter and arranged for emergency accommodation. She should have listened to what we were trying to say to her and spoken to us with respect.

Or, she should have acknowledged that whilst the case was being reviewed, he should be in emergency housing.

Failing this, instead of suggesting the streets and the Safe Street Team as appropriate support, she should have suggested some kind accommodation that has a roof.

Visit number 3:

Our friend returned to the housing office in person on the deadline they had given for the decision. He was told that a decision was yet to be finalised and was told to phone the following day. He called up the next day to find out what the decision was only to be told that the decision could take up to six weeks.

What should have happened

He should have received the decision as he was promised and not been given false deadlines which it now seems the manager had made up to get us out of there on our second visit.

Lambeth housing office have knowingly left a vulnerable homeless person to find somewhere on the streets whilst they make a decision on whether he is in priority need (which the manager hinted would be a negative one), denying him emergency accommodation they should provide in the interim and continually misinforming him (not informing him about the section 184 notification, “call in tomorrow and the decision will be made”).

Homeless services in London 

We are also appalled by the homeless services and support that are (un)available to homeless people that we have learnt about from our friend.

There is often strict criteria on accessing homeless shelters and services meaning that our friend has been turned away from a shelter which did not accept those who had access to public funds and denied support from one organisation because he has mental health issues.

He has been encouraged by his social worker to sleep rough in order to access rough sleeper support services such as Lambeth Safe Street Team, Southwark Spot Homeless Team, Streetlink, and No Second Night Out. However, for the last two nights, the people who are supposed to locate and support him have failed to do so. He has been told by No Second Night Out that he can sleep on the streets for a maximum of 10 days but after that if the team turn up and do not recognise him, he will no longer receive help.

We are a housing support and action group. We believe in decent homes for all. This sort of service, where the housing office fails to live up to its name and fails on so many other levels as well (basic respect), is not acceptable. We welcome people to get involved in the group to provide support for each other and take action together.

Anti-gentrification event this Saturday in Windrush Square

Event in Windrush Square this Saturday 5th July from 2pm to discuss evictions and gentrification in our local area. Come along and share your thoughts and ideas. There will also be music and a quiz!

For more info, see this brilliant blog piece http://evictionbrixton.tumblr.com/post/53932807346/eviction-brixton