Report Slum Landlords for Fly tipping!

 

It was great to see publicity here about Newham Community Safety team out and about in Newham.

"Last week Cllr James Beckles, Cabinet Member for Crime and Community Safety, joined our community safety cross service 3 days of action in Stratford. They were encouraging people to wear face coverings in the mall, ensuring businesses are COVID19 compliant, picking up on anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping.

Police and enforcement partnership team were also patrolling.

Report it on our website: www.newham.gov.uk/report"

I am really keen that residents report slum landlords who are responsible for many fly tips, especially dumped mattresses and discarded black rubbish bags. Please report them on link above (the vast majority of good landlords are are let down by a small minority of criminals who need to be prosecuted)

Newham Full Council Meeting 18 June 2018 - 3 minute update on Housing Services

Picture from the new style Newham Full Council meeting at East Ham Town Hall yesterday evening. The most people I have ever seen at a normal Council meeting I think?

As the Cabinet member of Housing Services I gave a 3 minute report on what I had been doing (see below) and answered 4 written questions from the public. 

"Chair, Like my cabinet colleagues, I have had a busy few weeks going walkabout around Newham estates, blocks, housing schemes and projects; talking to residents, service users, management, officers from the GLA, other councils, the local voluntary sector and front line housing staff about the good and the bad in Newham Housing.

Nearly everyone recognises we have a housing crisis and it is not only a crisis in London but a national crisis up and down the land. 

Yet, in Newham, We have our own challenges and opportunities, including having the longest Council waiting list in London with 26000 households chasing around 570 vacent properties every year. For every single social rent home that comes available, there are 44 households who want a move. 

We also have the highest number of homeless in London and we have thousands of residents in social housing, in the private rented sector and in owner owner occupation, who suffer from overcrowding and poor quality homes.

I have had children taking exams contact me because they have no where to go at home to study and revise. We have grown up children in their 30s and 40s, still living with their parents, not through choice, but because they cannot afford to move out and find their own homes. 

We will continue to campaign and press the Government to work with us to eliminate slum landlords, overcrowding and homelessness, while looking to transform how we deliver housing services in Newham. Residents will be at the heart of this.

In the Autumn, we will start a review from top to bottom of the borough allocations policy and then look at a rebirth of Tenant and Residents representation and participation in our borough 

Following on from the first anniversary of Grenfell disaster, today, I agreed in consultation with the Mayor, to spend £10 million on essential fire safety contracts and to spend a further £10 million on fire safety by end of the financial year. Details to be published. 

We expect the Government to live up to its promises to fully fund these essential fire safety works. Even though the money that they have promised councils so far appears to be inadequate. If we don’t get our money we may have another fight on our hands. 

Thank you Chair. 

"drive slum landlords out of the market" London Labour Conference #LabLon17

Housing motion 1 (my speech)

"Conference, John Gray, Chair of Greater London Unison Labour Link moving motion 1 on housing as amended by compositing.

Conference, You may be surprised that unison, a union which is a predominantly public sector trade union has submitted a motion that concentrates on reform and change of the private rental sector.

I am in fact a housing worker who has worked in social housing in London for the past 25 years. However, it is a fact, particularly in London that more of our members now live in private rental sector than in social housing, many of whom due to poverty pay, are dependent upon housing benefit, to live in damp, overcrowded, expensive and insecure accommodation. So while unison campaign strongly in favour of a mass building programme for public homes at a social rent, the private rental sector is key to us and I would imagine to all of you here today

What inadequate levels of local housing allowances means (at the risk of teaching some of you to suck eggs) is that hundreds of low paid Londoners are being forced out of London or face spending nearly all of their disposable income on making up their rent. Housing benefit will not cover the full real cost of the rent.

I have trade union members who have responsible jobs delivering public services who rely on food banks and 2nd or even 3rd jobs in the evenings and weekends to pay the rent and survive.

Even public service worker on better pay find London completely unaffordable. Recently the chief executive of a large London housing association said that many of her staff and I quote “lived in shared houses, or even shared bedrooms, or living in places that are disgusting. If they were in the social sector we would consider them homeless in those circumstances.”

This is not unique and I am sure all of you here will also be able to share horror stories about friends, family or work colleagues being exploited and living in similar disgusting housing conditions but who live in fear of even challenging their landlord because they fear eviction for doing so.

So this is why we not only desperately need rent controls and more affordable rents in London we also need greater security of tenure and protection from eviction when tenants complain against disrepair and exploitation.

We do need borough wide licensing of landlords but also we also vitally need guaranteed minimum standards for all. We cannot just licence slum landlords and take fees from them we must drive them out of the property market.

Finally conference, as important as radical reform of the private sector is, I must agree with our key note speaker Emily Thornberry in her speech yesterday that the solution to the wider housing crisis is quite simple. Just build more homes.

Thank you. Please support the motion".