Over the last few weeks, ITV has broadcast a series of articles highlighting terrible social housing conditions from a cluster of tragic cases in both council and housing association properties. ITV's series of Housing Stories has charted disrepairs in many forms. Using the format of a longer documentary, ITV brought many of these stories together… Continue reading Surviving Squalor: ITV’s Conversation Starter
Category: Tenant & Resident Democracy
Peabody Sells the Family Silver
By Tim Smith I recently witnessed surveyors prepping the three-bedroom flat upstairs for auction after the death of my neighbour, a secure tenant. It will be the second Peabody social home sent to private auction in this street in the last six months. The first to go was a ground floor one-bedroom flat converted for… Continue reading Peabody Sells the Family Silver
Homes England’s Unaffordable Housing Programme
Homes England, has announced its list of ‘Strategic Partners’ to receive funding under the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) over the next five years (2021 to 2026). Although the funding is from central government, Homes England is the government body responsible for allocating the funding and monitoring its use across England. The Homes Englad announcement lists… Continue reading Homes England’s Unaffordable Housing Programme
Not One Resident’s Voice
By Carl Davis L&Q chief executive Fiona Fletcher-Smith must be hoping that the long bank holiday weekend has induced collective amnesia over the damning report in Sunday's Observer (here) on the persistence of appalling living conditions in L&Q homes originally exposed by the paper in 2018. The ongoing scandal of disrepair continues, despite L&Q commissioning… Continue reading Not One Resident’s Voice
Bitter Sweet Charity
By Carl Davis In the Islamic tradition there is a saying that when it comes to charity "the left hand shouldn’t know what the right is doing". It means that good deeds and acts of charity should be carried out discreetly for the sole benefit of the intended beneficiaries, not the moral aggrandisement or any… Continue reading Bitter Sweet Charity
Shepherds Bush Shambles
The executive of Shepherds Bush Housing Association (SBHA) have been condemned as "unfit to govern" by some employees and tenants horrified at the landlord's culture of mismanagement. Examples of failings provided to SHAC include incorrect service charge bills being sent to around 900 leaseholders over the last eight years. Among the estates affected were the… Continue reading Shepherds Bush Shambles
Hyde Cracks: Third Strike Group Win!
Hyde Housing association has caved in to a tenant's demand for a service charge reduction after he informed the landlord he had begun a service charge strike. This rapid victory comes just a few short weeks after beginning the strike action. This timescale contrasts favourably against many fruitless years previously spent attempting to challenge unfair… Continue reading Hyde Cracks: Third Strike Group Win!
Service Charges Exposed
The Financial Times (FT), one of Britain's most high profile newspapers, has published a detailed exposure of the service charge scandal, and has called on government to bring it to an end. "If you just let them put it all through on trust then you’re almost certainly getting fleeced” Clare Richards, Peabody tenant The piece… Continue reading Service Charges Exposed
Riverside-OHG Merger: Let Residents Speak!
The failing leadership of One Housing Group (OHG) and growth aspirations of The Riverside Group will lead both into merger later this year. One Housing Group (OHG), is based in London and South East, and has 17,000 homes. Riverside is based in Liverpool, and has 58,000 homes across England. It aims to develop more in… Continue reading Riverside-OHG Merger: Let Residents Speak!
Not Welcome Here: The Social Housing Stigma
By Carl Davis Carl Davis reviews the report on challenging the stigmatization of social housing tenants in England, by Amanze Ejiogu and Mercy Denedo. The report sets out to fill the knowledge gap around the stigmatisation of social housing, and explain how and why people are judged negatively and even actively discriminated against simply because… Continue reading Not Welcome Here: The Social Housing Stigma
