Hackney Council lets down the Hackney Housing Group!

Posted on | January 28, 2010 | 4 Comments

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Yesterday the Hackney Housing Group, a group of people who are homeless, temporarily housed, overcrowded or experiencing bad or unsuitable housing were left waiting when Nargis Khan, Council Cabinet member for Community services failed to show up to a meeting she had arranged nearly two months before. The group was told at the last minute that she was away “on business” and that Diane Abott MP would be cancelling the meeting and so chose not to meet with the Housing Group and Diane Abbott MP.

Many of the group’s members face serious, even life threatening situations. For instance Zana Pazeraite who is a Lithuanian mother with a eight week old baby and 12 year old, who will be evicted from a Hackney Homes property which they have been squatting. They have been refused accommodation by Hackney Council and Waltham Forest, even though a social services assessment was begun by Hackney council two months ago.

We are a small voluntary group with no funding and it takes a lot of effort to all be in one place, as we need to organise childcare, translators and transport. Zana was one of the group let down and angry today, she faces eviction from the squat she is still living in on the 8th of February. Diane Abbott has rescheduled our meeting for the 9th, but clearly this will be too late for Zana and her family.

The City and Hackney Safeguarding Children board are inquiring into Christelle Pardo and her son’s death (who did in May 2009 after being left destitute) but as Zana’s situation shows, there is an ongoing problem. We have further first hand evidence of a serious systemic problem in our public services. Please get in contact with the group if you want more detail.

Jules from the Housing group says:

“As a group, we are fighting for our right to live in reasonable accommodation. We have constantly been ignored and silenced. Today’s cancelled meeting is further evidence of our being left voiceless.

In reading the Hackney Housing Needs report and the Draft Housing Strategy for Hackney, we have found that Hackney’s extreme housing crisis is in fact being created by the Council’s obsession with market solutions, and a failure to deal with known problems. There is little or no planning for social housing which is badly needed. Affordable housing is not affordable. Recent housing developments in Hackney have been passed without any provision for social housing due to the recession.

Central Government are paying Hackney Council half a million pounds a week in housing benefit to keep people in appalling conditions in Temporary Accommodation. That is a conservative figure based on the Council’s own data in the reports. Hackney Council are directly profiting from our misery.”

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