Launch of the Homelessness Bill 2019 on youtube

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Social Housing, Affordable Rents & Elimination of Homelessness Bill

Here is the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOV3i6TolJU&feature=youtu.be

The launch started at 2:30PM Today, Monday, 16 December 2019.

Agenda of the Launch

2.30 p.m.
Welcome -  Jennifer Nadel of Compassion in Politics

2.35 p.m.
Why launch this Bill? -  Rev Paul Nicolson

2.55 p.m.
“Housing and inequality in the UK - Inequality street" - Daniel Tomlinson, Resolution Foundation [The data referred to by Daniel is available via https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/inequality-street
]

3.15 p.m.
"The impacts of demolishing council estates and why we need more council homes" -Professor Loretta Lees [A major focus here is how London's 'out of borough placements' translated as gentrification' and loss to those displaced and thus alienated. In some cases this amounts to 'genocide', she says. Precariousness -- living on a prayer -- is rife as a cumulative result of right wing government policies. ]

3.35 p.m.
"The Social Housing, Affordable Rent and Elimination of Homelessness Bill" - Ian Wise QC

[Ian outlines the obligations his Bill places on local authorities to monitor housing issues in their area, and also the corresponding obligations placed upon the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government that are legally binding and enforceable.]

3.55 p.m.
Response from Councillor Zena Brabazon, Deputy Leader Haringey Council. Labour Party. [Zena was elected to Haringey Council in 2018 after campaigning actively against the Haringey Development Vehicle that Paul Nicolson was campaigning against. Through her campaigning she also met Prof Loretta Lees. Council housing policy has since been informed by inputs from Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, Child Poverty Action Group and other organisations. As a ward councillor she has also been informed by contact with ward constituents and her work as a school governor in recognising the extent of child poverty. She also acknowledges the life foundation given her by a caring state -- "not a nanny state: just a decent state."

She also thanked Paul Nicolson for his pre-2018 Haringey Council elections campaign of civil disobedience in refusing to pay Council Tax while many in that borough were made poorer by its Council Tax Reduction Scheme ignorance of their plight. Full Council Tax Reduction has been restored to the poorest families and Paul's refusal to pay Council Tax has ended.

She thinks the Bill drafted by Ian Wise is "a brilliant initiative" against the inhuman constraints imposed by right wing central government.

4.15 p.m.
Questions and discussion 

4.55 p.m.
Conclusion - Jennifer Nadel of Compassion in Politics

5.00 p.m.
END

NB: The event was originally to be chaired by Debbie Abrahams MP, but as a family friend of the late Frank Dobson MP she was attending Frank's funeral

See also https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2019/10/government-and-fiona-bruce-backing-for-mipim-uk-summit-2019.html

The apartheid of wealth state we're in

The apartheid of wealth State we're in

Preface by Alan Wheatley

Frank Dobson lived among the voters who elected him their MP election after election

I originally published this re-publishing of a Community Care magazine Social Care Experts blog post, at the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Web Log that I used to administer. In a way, my yet republishing it again here is a tribute to the example set by the late Frank Dobson MP in living among the people he represented, though that was much despised by right wing tabloid newspapers.

Further, since I republished the below blog posting by Bob Holman at a Web Log that I administered, it has been apparently deleted from the Community Care website.

The blog posting below is originally from Community Care magazine and the days of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. The matters of geographical social inequality raised in that piece have become more urgent as a consequence of the social cleansing that has arisen since the 2010 General Election brought in a cabinet of millionaires with no real electoral mandate for the policies that they and their successors attempted to excuse with the backdrop of the crash of 2008 that really stemmed from the perils of investment bankers being rescued by the State.

The pull quote in the Bob Holman article is:

"The affluent elite tell the government about poverty. Those who endure it are shoved aside." 

These days, that shoving of poor people aside gives rise to the sharp rise in out-of-London-dispersal of poor people. While the definition of 'affordable housing' laid down by investment banker-turned 'ennobled'-welfare reform minister David Freud and his ilk have made a mockery of social housing, the debt induced by linking definition of 'affordable' to "80% of [a deregulated housing market] rate" results in a steep rise in homelessness and out-of-London housing dispersals.

Yet with property developers and Central Government pulling Camden Council by the purse strings, we are in for further segregation of wealthy and poor people as this paragraph from a recent Camden New Journal item highlights:

The so-called “affordable” section of the development appears not to have the same entrance, amenity areas and roof terraces as the rest of the building. Even rubbish disposal seems to be segregated; tenants of the affordable flats are expected to take their own rubbish to the bins while the other flats will be provided with a rubbish chute. Moreover it seems that this section, together with the community space, will be directly over one of the most polluted and noisy traffic junctions in Camden. 

It can, ideally, be instructive for people to be 'up close and personal' with what they emit. I close this preface with a link to an item from 2011 about Jeremy Clarkson's sad discovery about such matters.

Poor must meet Gordon

Photo of Bob Holman taken from 2016 obituary in The Guardian
"Bob Holman gave up a comfortable life as a university professor
to follow his religious convictions to live and work on deprived housing estates."
Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The GuardianVisit The Guardian obituary page for Bob Holman

by Bob Holman

Originally posted in Community Care magazine, 20 February 2008

Many of those committed to reducing poverty make the time to lobby the rich but have little contact with those at the sharp end Papers recently released show that Tony Blair had regular meetings with the ultra-rich. They lobbied the prime minister on tax breaks and pensions for themselves and their companies. No doubt they now meet Gordon Brown.

If a lobby for the rich meets in Downing Street why not one for the poor? I do not mean the leaders of national charities who have regular meetings with ministers. Odd that those on salaries of more than £100,000 a year, which help reinforce the idea of inequality, should take it upon themselves to be the poverty lobby.

Bob Holman: "The affluent elite tell the government about poverty.
Those who endure it are shoved aside."

Anyone who lives in a deprived area knows that many people on low incomes are intelligent and articulate about their plight. In 1998, I encouraged some residents in Easterhouse, Glasgow to write. They did not need to be taught to think or analyse. They did need help in finding a publisher. When the book came out as Faith in the Poor, it soon ran to a second edition.

One problem is that people in poverty are segregated from the powerful. When I joined the Labour Party in the 1960s, some MPs still lived in council estates, cheap housing areas and pit towns. Not now. As the research of Danny Dorling, professor at Sheffield University, shows, Britain is an increasingly segregated society.

Poverty lobby

The affluent – MPs, leaders of think tanks, government advisers, other senior public figures and all who make up the chattering classes – are geographically and socially distanced from those who struggle to survive. Consequently, it is almost impossible for them to have close friendships with and to act jointly with those who experience inequality. It is the powerful, affluent elite who tell the government and the media about poverty while those who endure it are shoved aside.

The poverty lobby should now campaign on the issue: “listen to poor people rather than us”. If the government agrees to breakfast with those on low incomes, how could it be organised? I don’t know. I do know that organisations such as ATD Fourth World run community and service user groups made up of single parents, pensioners, those on disability benefit, asylum seekers and many more.

Their representatives would be a start.

The agenda? That is for them to decide. I do believe that they would demonstrate to politicians that poverty is not because of an underclass or fecklessness or defective personalities but is something imposed by the powerful – the kind of people who make up the ultra rich lobby.

Bob Holman is an author and voluntary neighbourhood worker in Glasgow

- See more at: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2008/02/poor-must-meet-gordon/#sthash.fOdghxsF.dpuf


Alan notes: The reason the above 'See more at' link no longer works and in fact leads to a 'page not found' cartoon, is that Community Care magazine has moved from being "the voice of social care," to being a publication that does not wish to interfere with the marketisation of social care, and/or offend potential advertisers. Deletion or re-routing of pages on a website is often a cause of what is called 'page rot'.
See also

Planning White Paper ignores accessible housing, Disability News Service reports

Taxpayers Against Poverty on the demonisation of council tenants

From Taxpayers Against Poverty founder Revd Paul Nicolson:

TRASHING NARRATIVE Trashing of characters of council tenants since 1997 to justify the destruction of their homes excludes millions of citizens from a fair share of UK wealth

19 October 2019

THE TRASHING NARRATIVE - SUMMARY

Council Housing started by providing security, freedom and an inside loo but since 1997 Prime Ministers have embarked on a policy of  trashing the characters of council tenants to justify the destruction of their homes. Tony Blair sought to transform Britain's most run-down areas saying the only answer for some of the worst sink estates could be demolition. Cameron slated council residents who live behind ‘padlocked and chained-up doors’ where ‘poor parenting, addiction and mental health problems’ are ‘entrenching poverty in Britain. In effect UK government deems around 10% its citizens, the poorest tenants, not worthy of a decent home, with truly affordable rent in a secure community or a fair share of the UK's wealth. The poorest are made even poorer. An ongoing oppression approaching a crime against humanity.  

I have been advised to check the sources of the otherwise useful blog from Architects for Social Housing (ASH). For example this is not true. "The adjacent Northumberland Park estate and its 1,417 homes has since been demolished to make way for the new football stadium".  I go to Church every Sunday in Northumberland Park and the council estate is still standing.


More at http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/trashing-narratve-trashing-of-characters-of-benefit-claimants-from-2010-to-

Government and Fiona Bruce backing for MIPIM UK Summit 2019

UK Government and Broadcasting selling out to global property market bonanza

Top finds by Google search of keyword:"Boris Johnson" MIPIM

Reflecting on my recent blog post Vermin-infested 'social housing' in the constituency of an MP who is a private landlord (1) I thought about attempting to write Hereford Times on the matter (word limit for readers letters generally 250 words), and got to thinking of now Prime Minister Boris Johnson's record as London Mayor in relation to the property developers' bonanza called MIPIM.

"What might that indicate for a post-Brexit UK in terms of dodgy trade deals and sell off of UK land while cuts in government spending on social housing are diverted toward 'Help to Buy' subsidies for property developers?" I wondered.

So I looked up
"Boris Johnson" MIPIM 
by way of a Google search.(2)

The second find down on that search results page

MIPIM UK Summit, the UK's leading property event

https://www.mipimuk.co.uk › en-gb

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has endorsed this year's MIPIM UK Summit in a foreword in which he emphasises the importance of the built environment sector to ...

 led me to

Top of page view athttps://www.mipimuk.co.uk/en-gb.html

Housing Minister Esther McVey and Investment Dept for International Trade Minister Graham Stuart
booked as keynote speakers

Prime Minister of UK on the MIPIM UK Summit
View letter link
https://www.mipimuk.co.uk/content/dam/sitebuilder/rm/mipim-uk/pdf/PM_Message-MIPIM_UK_Summit.pdf

BBC Question Time Chairperson Fiona Bruce to chair 're-energised MIPIM UK Summit
View full speaker list link
https://www.mipimuk.co.uk/en-gb/conferences-content.html

Confirmed sponsors include Homes England and other UK housing-related public bodies
Discover MIPIM UK Summit participating companies
https://online-database.mipimuk.co.uk/en/online-database/companies/

While I note that this event has already happened by now, I shall put a close to this 'announcement' blog post for now, so as to flag it up for others' analysis, except for me to add a link to blog post
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/it-is-abuse-of-power-for-property-developer-lendlease-tottenham-hotspur-foo

POWER CORRUPTS - PEOPLE SUFFER Lendlease, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and Haringey Council to team up to force the small private companies of the Peacock Estate off the land

.

Reference Notes

1. https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2019/10/vermin-infested-social-housing-in-the-constituency-of-a-landlord-mp.html
2. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=%22boris+johnson%22+mipim

PS: Publishable feedback received by e-mail

From Wembley Matters blogger Martin Francis, by e-mail:

Thanks Alan.  You may be interested in another couple of links. Green Party demonstrating against MIPIM when it was held in London. London Green Party officially badged the video (though got my local party wrong) - when the Green Party actually campaign don issue other than elections -  and an article by me on how the MIPIM culture was affecting regeneration decisions.

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2014/10/housing-for-people-not-profit-greens-at.html

Title: Housing for People NOT Profit: Greens at MIPIM Protest Today

[Martin is the second speaker on the video at that page, that I feel worth re-presenting here]

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2012/10/is-donalds-right-development-road-for.html

Title:Is Donald's the right development road for Brent?


 Martin

Vermin-infested 'social housing' in the constituency of an MP who is a private landlord

Please note: Since publishing this blog post, I've received e-mail response from the MP cited, to a letter I wrote Hereford Times about the matter:

Dear Alan

Thank you for copying me in on your email.  Of course I very much share your concerns that the quality of local housing should be as high as possible. But it is not true that I am a "Landlord MP". My wife and I used to have a flat which was let for a few years but we no longer do.

Yours sincerely,

Jesse [Norman]

 None the less, I would point out that Jesse Norman is a Conservative MP, and current UK Conservative Government is deeply involved with global privatisation of UK social housing.

Alan Wheatley

---

An herefordtimes.com site search of keywords

"herefordshire housing ltd" rats [1]

records instances of rats in empty homes in Beattie Avenue, Hereford, dating back to at least May 2019. What makes the Hereford Times, Thursday October 11, 2019 print edition front page story 'Rats run riot: Empty homes are "crawling with vermin"' regarding these keywords stand out though, is photographic evidence of

"rats so bold that [a street resident] was even able to take a picture of them in a garden in broad daylight."[2]

Hereford Times, Oct 10, 2019 lead story, with photo caption:
"Neighbour Julie Dutton, inset, says unoccupied homes in Beattie Avenue, Hereford are infested.
Picture: Rob Davies"

while the Hereford Times article reports that

"Herefordshire Housing tenants say rats are spreading through the boarded-up properties, burrowing under the occupied homes and entering their gardens in search for food...."

 

 Herefordshire Housing Ltd "supporting 'customers' to achieve their potential for sustainable wellbeing and independence"?

Perhaps if Herefordshire Housing Ltd were a restaurant, public health inspectors would order it closed down? But

"Herefordshire Housing provides homes to people across Herefordshire, managing and maintaining over 5800 homes. We are a not for profit housing association that aims to support and challenge individuals, families and communities to achieve their potential for sustainable wellbeing and independence"[3]

and in an era in which social housing has been privatised, describes tenants as "customers":

"We have been working with pest control agencies who have provided us and our customers with safety advice to support them and alleviate their concerns specific to their circumstances."[4]

The Parliamentary constituency concerned is Hereford & South Herefordshire, where the MP is Jesse Norman (Conservative). Jesse Norman is one the "one in five" MPs who are private landlords.[5]

Meanwhile, a 6 x A5 page leaflet from Bloor Homes distributed to my home about half a mile from Beattie Avenue proclaims on its cover:

WHAT IS IT THEY SAY?

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE (5 YEARS INTEREST) FREE.

MAKE AN EFFORTLESS MOVE TO HEREFORD POINT

wherein lies

"2 and 3 bedroom new homes from £224,950" at "5% deposit. 5 year interest free loan. A brand new home. All with Help to Buy*.
[* refers to the small print at the back of the leaflet]

"You've found it: the perfect new home, in a location you love.
A wonderful 2 or 3 bedroom one just like our new homes at Hereford Point.
So how do you make one of them yours?

"By using the Help to Buy scheme and having a 5% deposit.
After that, it's simply a case of moving in and getting your new home looking exactly as you've imagined.
And that's the best bit.

"Get in touch today to find out how Help to Buy can help you."

Money Week describes 'Help to Buy' as "a crazy subsidy for housing developers."[6]

Questions arising from all this:

1. What budget has Herefordshire Housing Ltd at its disposal for property maintenance so that they can address the problems arising from the empty, boarded up, vermin-infested prefabs in Beattie Avenue?
2. How much taxpayers money has helped boost property developers' and private landlords' profits in Herefordshire?
3. Is it okay that landlord MPs have a big say in the development of housing-related government policies, such as how 'affordable rent' is defined?
4. Can a landlord MP really represent the best interests of constituents who cannot afford to benefit from 'Help to Buy' or even nominally 'affordable rents'?

Reference Notes

1. https://www.herefordtimes.com/search/?search=%22herefordshire+housing+ltd%22+rats
2. https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/17965358.empty-homes-street-crawling-rats/
3. https://www.hhl.org.uk/about
4. Hereford Times, Thursday, October 10, 2019, 'Rats run riot: Empty homes are crawling with vermin' lead story  
5. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/almost-one-in-five-mps-are-landlords
6. 
   

High Road West, Tottenham housing project "an inhuman treatment of powerless tenants" — Taxpayers Against Poverty

2. An inhuman treatment of powerless tenants.  TAP is opposing in the implementation of the project at High Road West. We so firmly believe it is against the best interests of the low income residents of Tottenham. After the secure tenants were moved out, the current tenants of Love Lane Estate have been moved in by Haringey Council. Because they are homeless families in temporary accommodation they have no relevant housing rights and can be moved out more easily before demolition. An inhuman treatment of powerless tenants. Some of these 180 young families have been in temporary accommodation for up and over ten years. They have already been forced to moved several times so disrupting the education of their growing children. They are among 3000 homeless families in temporary accommodation in Haringey. Too many of them are in one room in hostels or other accommodation -  when none ought to be. The way the High Road West project has been designed does not commit the council to using 100% of the site for meeting part of a target of providing the 3000 much needed secure homes for the homeless.  What is proposed is the convoluted process of allowing Lend Lease to build on land which is free to the council and then sell "affordable" homes back to the council for £68,000 each. That enables Lend Lease to make the largest profit possible by selling the remaining and the majority if the homes into the very expensive London housing market. The best way to build truly affordable homes for rent is for the council keep their public land out of the market, borrow the money and hire Lend Lease to build them. It is a matter of public interest that we all know the terms of the  out of court settlement bewteen lendlease and the council, particularly whether it involved Northumberland Park, another council estate eyed by international property devopers for similar treatment. Another shocking aspect of the High Road West project is the intention to grab the land from under 50 small thriving businesses of the Peacock Industrial Estate. Their businesses, which are employing local people, will be severely disrupted - to create a park!   The current national housing policy is ideologically designed to prevent the building of council homes on council land. To do so is not socialism. It is simply an intelligent way of building truly affordable housing which has been used by all political parties in power since WWII. Also the capacity of the poorest tenants to pay even the lowest rents in London has been severely undermined by the shredding of housing benefit and other social security payments. (See above) Now is not the time to build social housing at council house rents. It would be better to leave it until after the next election which will have to change national housing and social security policies for the better and , it is ardently hoped. for the better use of public and private land for the common good. For the time being the council ought to stop pushing powerless homeless families in temporary accommodation from pillar to post. The council can leave them where they are - even declare them all permanently housed. National housing and social security policies have to change  to meet the needs of low income tenants. Taxpayers Against Poverty A VOICE FOR THE COMPASSIONATE MAJORITY No citizen without an affordable home and an adequate income in work or unemployment. Supported by TAP RESOURCES INDEX on our website  TAP DEPENDS ON SUPPORTERS - PLEASE CONSIDER MONTHLY CONTRIBUTION - THANKS

Copyright © 2019 Taxpayers Against Poverty, All rights reserved.

I, Alan Wheatley, in forwarding the above from Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty, refer the reader of this to

1. Taxpayers Against Poverty site search 'Lend Lease'
2. Taxpayers Against Poverty site search 'Tottenham Hotspur' helps outline the fact that that Premier League soccer club at least is more of a franchise for 'global brand' than a local outlet for 'the people's game'

Martin Francis of Wembley in LB Brent helping raise concerns of Council Tenants

My friend Martin Francis of Brent Green Party and, more importantly in blogging terms, his London Borough of Brent locale supplied the first comment to the launch of this new blog venture.

As I wrote in my reply, he has been an exemplary blogger. His content follows his personality of fairness and community involvement without tribalism while he maintains his Brent Green Party and Green Left credentials.

Yesterday he wrote in support of council tenants in the face of 'regeneration'. What he wrote is well worth reading, whatever the reader's location.

Campaigners call for a 'NO' vote in South Kilburn regeneration ballot