By Lindsay Bush The Post Office Horizon Inquiry has done something that tenants and residents rarely see in housing: it has stepped back from thousands of individual experiences and asked whether they were actually signs of a much bigger system failure. The Inquiry did not just investigate faulty computer software. It examined how complaints were… Continue reading Does Housing Need Its Own Horizon-Style Inquiry?
Grenfell United, the group representing the bereaved and survivors, has called on Barnet Group to reverse its appointment of the former housing director of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) at the time of the Grenfell fire. Barnet Group is the council's wholly owned housing company and the appointment has deeply angered survivors… Continue reading Standing With Survivors: SHAC Joins Grenfell United Demand That Barnet Sacks Laura Johnson
By SHAC and Geri Girardi Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) has lost a First Tier Tribunal Case after attempting to recover historic major works costs by raiding the residents' reserve fund. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal raises important questions about how registered social landlords recover the cost of major works from leaseholders. But it also… Continue reading Notting Hill Woes: Residents Win Legal Battle Over Historic Repair Costs
By Boz For all the noise of national politics, Britain is missing the collapse of something more fundamental: the ability of ordinary people to hold local power to account. Westminster, of all places, should be the borough that sets the standard. Instead, it has become a warning of what happens when a council stops expecting… Continue reading Westminster’s Accountability Crisis: A Call to Action
More than 100 activists gathered in person and online on the 11th October to plan a national tenants and residents (housing) union. The event was organised by SHAC as the basis for forming an independent action group that can transform the vision into reality. Attendees included those leading local action on their estates, regional groups… Continue reading Conference Agrees to Build a Housing Union
Just one year ago, a community of women from mainly Bengali migrant and refugee backgrounds living in the east end of London would probably not have described themselves as grass-roots housing activists. Yet their substandard housing conditions left them keen to fight for better, and their ESOL (English language) class gave them both the perfect… Continue reading SHAC and English for Action: Empowering Community Housing Action
By Richard Simpson, a registered blind tenant of Riverside Housing If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a crime family decided to take over a housing association, let me introduce you to Riverside Housing Group: a not-so-merry band of landlords with the operational grace of The Sopranos, minus the food and charisma. In fact,… Continue reading The Housing Mafia’s Service Charge Racket
When the new round of service charge demands began to take effect at the start of April, SHAC found itself supporting a host of new tenant and resident groups embarking on service charge strikes. Tenants and residents are often presented as being helpless in the face of superior landlord power, with their bottomless resources, ready… Continue reading Tenants and Residents Turn to Radical Action
By Francesco Guerrieri Housing maintenance issues and service charge disputes are among the most challenging aspects of being a resident in the UK today. Many leaseholders, council tenants, and housing association residents face similar frustrations: steadily increasing service charges with little transparency about how funds are being spent; maintenance requests that go unanswered for months;… Continue reading How We Took Control of our Building: A Resident’s Journey to Acquire the Right to Manage
A One Housing Resident writes Residents say that after two years of cladding meetings, there remains no foreseeable end in sight for One Stratford residents. June 2024 will mark four years since we, as residents of the One Stratford estate in East London, were officially told that our homes were unsafe and in need of… Continue reading OHG One Stratford Residents’ Two Year Battle Over Cladding Continues
