You are number 19,993 on our waiting list

At the Socialist Resistance dayschool on a political voice for the working class (see advert top right) the air will be filled with coruscating denunciations of the failure of social democracy to deliver reforms for working people. There is something similar in this week’s print edition of the East London Advertiser alongside the reports of…

Liam

May 22, 2008

2–3 minutes

The paper reports that there are more than 20,000 tenants on the council’s waiting lists for rehousing and that the Review and Scrutiny committee, after a six month investigation, has discovered that they will have to wait years for something of a reasonable standard that they can afford. The report suggests that the tenants on the waiting list move to outlying areas such as Dagenham, Barking, Redbridge and Havering. In the meantime families are obliged to bid each week for a tiny number of properties listed online or in the council’s free newspaper.

In a separate but related story the paper reveals that families in council homes are being separated. As the children grow up and want to have their own place to live they find that there is nowhere in Tower Hamlets that they can afford to rent or buy. A solution that is being mooted is a “sons and daughters”policy. This was a Liberal wheeze from about twenty years at a time when “sons and daughters” was code for white. Ok it wasn’t really a code because that would suggest that they were trying to conceal what they were trying to do. The demographics have changed considerably since then but no one is proposing building any new social housing.

There is an obvious demagogic point here so let me be the first to make it. An awful lot of building happening in this part of the world at the moment but virtually none of it is any form of social housing. To buy most of the homes that are being constructed you need to be able to access cash or a mortgage of about £400 000 minimum. This council is not markedly better or worse than any of its peers. All of them are stuck in an entirely neo-liberal, free market Labour approach to housing. It is no exaggeration to say that the number of private letting agencies and estate agents within a ten minute walk from this computer is greater than the number of newsagents, butchers and bakers combined. That is New labour’s strategic answer to providing homes for young workers and their families.

What does 20,000 tenants equal? Let’s assume that most of them are in a relationship and that there is at least one child. That probably works out at 60 000 plus people leaving in overcrowded conditions with the concomitant impact on their emotional and mental wellbeing. Little wonder that teenagers stab each other for recreation. If you are lucky you might get your own room in the hospital.

What was that we were saying about the need for mass class struggle parties?

6 responses to “You are number 19,993 on our waiting list”

bill j

May 22, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Well mass struggle anyway. But there’s no point pretending anymore that the left can unite on an inadequate political basis. Its been tried over and over in the last decade and comprehensively failed.
Instead we should agree an action plan around key points of struggle, in the case of housing there’s a few obvious demands, seize without compensation any empty homes, nationalise anyone facing repossession and provide them with a cheap secure tenancy instead, bring back tenants rights akin to those won in the 1960s/70s etc.
That way we can actually unite and fight around the needs of the working class. Only through this route will a party be built, but it shouldn’t be a pre-condition for effective struggle.

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bill j

May 22, 2008 at 9:47 pm

That should be nationalise the home of anyone facing repossession.
The point is that there are loads of really obvious ways of solving homelessness, even without thinking about a programme of public works.
I was walking around the back of Manchester town centre the other week and there are hundreds of empty flats bought up by speculators and lying empty while the prices crash.

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The digger

May 23, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Liam not wishing to be pedantic but your use of the words “social housing” concerns me. This is a generic tem that describes both council housing and housing associations (now call registered social landlords).

There has been a virtual national freeze on building council houses for 30 years, Due to to right to buy, demolition and small scale stock transfers the number of council houses in Birmingham has slumped from 135,000 to just over 60,000.

Whilst no council houses were built Governments did for a period of time look more favourably on financing house building by housing associations.

The problem with Housing Associations is that their rents are significantly higher, tenants are less secure and they are not democratically controlled.

The situation in Brum reflects the position in many authorities that there is a housing crisis that no-one really talks about, except for dropping house values and reduced mortgage lending.

The solution is obvious a massive programme of building well designed and agffordable council not social housing. This is passionately resisted by all the major parties.

Prior to the split in Respect I argued in Brum (with only partial success) that Council Housing should be one of main campaigning planks. This is still the case.

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bill j

May 23, 2008 at 3:52 pm

I don’t think that a massive programme of housing building is necessarily the answer – certainly not on its own. There are thousands of well built houses and flats already in existence but empty for one reason or another.
The first answer to the housing crisis is to seize this empty accomodation.
The second is to offer overstretched mortgage holders or those facing repossession the option of becoming council tenants, with their houses transformed into council property, the mortgages written off, and their payments transformed into a reasonable rent.

There are a number of other very obvious steps as well. I think the reason the left don’t fight for any of them, is that they are evidently anti-capitalist. Whereas building more council housing just isn’t is it?

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Ray

May 23, 2008 at 7:39 pm

I agree with billj’s idea that the government should be taking back ex-council homes in danger of repossession. Perhaps that could be extended to non ex-council housing. We need to be looking at all the ways we can fight back.

Where I think there might be a chance to fight back is when repossessions and rent hikes become much more common as the recession bites. Perhaps we will be able to help build community campaigns against rent hikes and repossessions. It’s a possibility that housing associations like Peabody will begin to ratchet up the rents even more than they have been doing in some areas.

In some ways it’s harder to organise individual house owners but where they are still part of council housing where rents are also increasing due to inflation it will be much easier argue for unity against repossessions and rent hikes. I think the same applies to housing association tenants.

As with the fight against the BNP there isn’t just one way of doing things and I hope that different groups and individuals will feel confident enough to take the initiative to get stuck in and try out different options. It’s the only way we’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. It’s important that we have organisations taking the lead but a grass roots campaign shouldn’t just be dependent on leadership from above. The more vibrant the debate the better as long as it doesn’t result in the paralysis of analysis.

I think the left needs to focus on regenerating confidence among workers to fight back. And that includes rebuilding our own confidence. After decades of neo-liberalism the confidence of grassroots and rank and file struggle appears to be slowly regenerating. The Left will take a lead in this by initiating campaigns and demo’s but should be willing to try out new local grass roots and rank and file initiatives. I don’t mean to make it sound like there’s a divide between “the left” and “workers” because it’s much more organic in practice.

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bill j

May 24, 2008 at 10:23 am

Whether or not there’s a recession, there certainly is a housing crisis and credit crunch.
We need to start from the needs of the working class and that means we cannot limit repossession/nationalisation of houses just to council housing – all homeowners who face unpayable mortgages should have the right to opt for the nationalisation of their home.
Everyone facing repossession should have the same choice.
In addition the empty homes owned by property speculators should be seized as should the property of private landlords.
By these means we can have an immediate effect on homelessness and provide a focus for action.
The problem the left faces is that they don’t start from what the working class needs, but from what they is acceptable to their rightwing allies (whoever they are).
The reason such anti-capitalist steps won’t be proposed is precisely because they are anti-capitalist, instead we’ll get calls for building more council housing – fine of course in and of itself – but not an answer to the immediate crisis but definitely acceptable to various rightwingers.

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