Housing Benefit | >Re-PHOTO

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum – 2015

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum: On Saturday 21st November 2015 I spent an hour covering a lunchtime rally and march about the housing problems in the London Borough of Waltham Forest before rushing to Whitechapel where Class War were holding another of their protests outside the sensational tourist attraction celebrating the horrific acts of ‘Jack the Ripper’.

Homes for All against social cleansing

Leyton & Walthamstow

Walthamstow Housing Action & Class War at the Ripper Museum

People met in Abbots Park Leyton for a rally organised by Waltham Forest Housing Action before they marched to a longer rally in the centre of Walthamstow. over the severe housing problems faced by those living in the borough of Waltham Forest.

The council has a housing waiting list of over 20,000 families, and although there is considerable home building taking place in the borough only 400 of 12,000 homes planned in Walthamstow in the next 5 years are for low earners.

As in most of London’s boroughs, mainly held by Labour councils, the ‘regeneration’ schemes begun under New Labour has led to the loss of social housing, pricing most local people in the many lower paid and middle-income jobs which are essential for the city to run. Regeneration has led to social cleansing with poorer residents being forced out to areas further from the centre.

The campaigners called for an end to housing evictions in the area – then taking place at twice the average rate for London, and the capping of private rents which are on average much higher than the maximum set by housing benefit, as well as a huge increase in social housing.

Housing benefit acts as a huge public subsidy for landlords, passing money to them. The public and those who live in rented accommodation would be much better served by money being spent of building social housing which would give a return to local councils from the rents.

Private rents allow landlords to get housing benefit and the excess rent paid by the tenants to pay off the loans they take out so they can buy property and get the benefit of increasing their capital – at our and the tenant’s expense.

Rising rents have increasingly made it impossible for many key workers – teachers, firefighters and others – to afford to live in the boroughs they serve.

*Press TV interviewed one of the campaigners who holds a placard ‘I have moved 4 times in 3 years! I want secure affordable housing’*

Although Press TV covered the event there was (as usual) no interest shown by mainstream UK media

Among the trade unions supporting the march were the National Union of Teachers and the Fire Brigades Union – who provided their fire engine as a platform for speakers and to lead the march.

Local politicians also came for the event along with Green Party Deputy Leader Dr Shahrar Ali. Among local groups with banners were residents of Residents of Fred Wigg and John Walsh towers on the edge of Wanstead Flats in Leytonstone., where the 234 social housing units are to be replaced by only 160 and new private flats were to be sold to raise £30 million.

I left as the march was on its way to Walthamstow to go to Whitechapel.

More on My London Diary at Homes for All against social cleansing.

Class War at the Ripper ‘Museum’

Cable St, Whitechapel

I met Class War as they arrived outside the Jack the Ripper tourist attraction in Cable St with their ‘Womens Death Brigade‘ banner for another in their series of protests against the ‘museum’ which celebrates the brutal and macabre killings of working class women in Whitechapel in 1888.

*Owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe’s partner Julian Pino and an employee in the shop*

The murderer was an insane serial killer who ripped open the bodies of his victims, removing the uterus and heart and a whole industry has arisen over trying to establish his identity, spurred on by the particularly gory details of his crimes.

*An officer tells Puno to stop phoning ‘999’ as the police are already here*

Although the police at the time were unable to solve the case, they appear to have given up after Montague Druitt drowned himself in the Thames shortly after the final one of these murders. But those aiming to profit from the whole series of articles, books and films have done their best to build up doubt and uncertainty, putting forward others, often very unlikely such as painter Walter Sickert, as the criminal.

The protest was noisy but peaceful with many of those taking part wearing masks of the shop’s owner – who had lied about the site becoming a museum to celebrate women’s history to gain support and planning permission.

It was enlivened by the arrival of activist singer/guitarist Cosmo who performed three appropriate songs which raised everyone’s spirits, and even the police obviously enjoyed the protest.

Shop owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe had left a shop worker and his partner Julian Pino inside the ‘museum’ to face the protesters and their was one spot of farce when a police officer went inside to tell him to stop continually phoning ‘999’ as the police were already there.

A man claiming to be a local resident and seemed to be a friend of the ‘museum’ came to complain to Class War against them protesting against a business that was bringing investment to an area that was so obviously in need of it. He was told that this kind of investmentglorified violence against women and was clearly detrimental to the area and offensive to many – including the living descendants of the victims.

It was hard to avoid the conclusion that his intervention had been prompted and possibly funded by the owner of this tacky tourist attraction, which noticeably attracted no customers while the protest was taking place.

More on My London Diary at Class War at the Ripper ‘Museum’.

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Housing Emergency Protest – 2010

Housing Emergency Protest – Downing St

Housing has again emerged in the media as a major issue with the Starmer government’s plans to make sweeping changes to the planning system and force local authorities to build 370,000 homes a year.

Though most of the uproar now is about building on land currently categorised as Green Belt, a scheme brought in in the 1950s to stop urban sprawl around our major cities and to stop neighbour urban areas from merging. It was needed than and worked well, but considerable areas are now ‘grey belt’ – “disused carparks and dreary wasteland” – and could be used for housing without any real loss of amenity. But what we really need is more appropriate actually affordable housing in our cities – rather than the expensive properties largely built for foreign investors and often kept empty all or most of the time now being built.

But although much of Labour’s policy makes sense, it really seems to do little to address the real problems of housing. Even if they succeed in the ambitious plan to build 1.5 million homes during this parliament, it seems almost certain that many of these will be the wrong homes in the wrong places.

To address the real issues of housing needs more radical solutions. Building “affordable homes” will not help a great deal as most of those in housing need can’t afford them.

It’s not enough to say “we will prioritise social rented accommodation wherever appropriate.” We need a commitment to build more social housing and to do so across those high rent areas such as London. The 20% or 25% on new developments needs to be both dramatically increased and much more needs to be at true social rents and with an end to developers being able to excuse themselves by pleading they cannot make high enough profits.

It’s not enough to say they will “support councils and housing associations to build their capacity and make a greater contribution to affordable housing supply.” We don’t need “affordable housing” but social housing.

A government dedicated to improving housing for all would also need to be outlining much stronger measures to tackle rents in the private sector which have been rising largely out of control for years. Many private renters in London are now paying over half their incomes on rent, and average rents in many areas are more than the salaries of key workers such as care workers and teaching assistants.

Housing benefit has acted as support for landlords and in part has fuelled rising rents, but now in most areas is at levels well below average rents. We need a new system of rent control, and also to revise many of the laws which have greatly reduced security of tenure for those in private rents and in council homes. The Renters Rights Bill is an important step in the right direction and needs to be brought in as soon as possible.

The protest in 2010 was about the coalition governments plans, most of which came into force the following year. It was disastrous for many, and the results were predictable – and profitable for landlords at all levels – including many MPs. And as the speakers said 14 years ago “the way to combat high rents is to introduce rent caps rather than to attack tenants, and that we need to build more social housing and provide security of tenure to create and sustain diverse and thriving communities.“

More about the protest on My London Diary at Housing Emergency Protest.

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Bike Theft, Tributes, Housing Benefit, Fascists & UAF

Saturday 1st April 2017 turned out to be a busy day in London, though the buses in my picture on Westminster Bridge were not then going anywhere – and the driver of the No 12 at the front of this row was taking a rest from his seat. Various protests and the police had brought traffic to a stop. As in many other months you can see more of my pictures taken as I travelled around in a London Images section.

Motorcycle Theft Protest Ride – Westminster

I’d vaguely wondered about paying another visit to the Ace Café on the North Circular Road at Stonebridge, but not riding a bike I would have felt something of an outsider, and the journey back to central London by the Bakerloo line wold have taken me around 40 minutes and I would have missed other things that were happening.

Organised gangs are still making rich pickings around the whole of London – and one of my neighbour’s had his bike targeted a few months ago, but the two men cutting through a substantial lock were spotted from the house opposite, and ran away when they were challenged halfway through.

In 2017 there were reported thefts in London of 8,131 motorbikes, 4,121 moped and 3,218 scooters, a total of almost 15,500 thefts. That amounts to one for every 7.5 powered bikes registered in the city. Motorcyclists came with a petition to the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary to give the police greater resources to tackle this crime, and for them to give it higher priority, for more ground anchors in bike parking bays and for tougher sentencing of offenders.

Motorcycle Theft Protest Ride

Flowers for London Victims – Westminster

Ten Days after the Westminster terror attack by a deranged driver, people were still stopping to look and and photograph the flowers for the victims, around the lamp standards on Waterloo Bridge, along the whole of the front of Parliament Square and in front of New Scotland Yard in its new building on the Victoria Embankment, where an eternal flame also remembers all police who have died while doing their duty.

There was a long strip of tributes along the front of Parliament Square opposite were PC Keith Palmer was killed to him and the others who died.

More pictures Flowers for London Victims.

Youth protest over housing benefits loss – Parliament Square

A grass roots group of young people, ‘#1821Resist’, were in Parliament Square to protest against the scrapping of housing benefit for young people which coming into force on this day.

They say that under Tory rule since 2010 homelessness has doubled and that this change will continue to leave vulnerable people without homes, making it almost impossible for them to get into work or education.

Youth protest over housing benefits loss

Iraqis protest US killing in Mosul – Downing St

Iraqis, mainly women dressed in black, were protesting opposite Downing St against the killing of civilians by US and Iraqi forces during the assault on Mosul. Attacks on the city, then held by the Islamic State (ISIL) begun in October 2016 and continuing until ISIL were defeated there in July 2017. According to Wikipedia (and the BBC) “The battle was the world’s single largest military operation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was considered the toughest urban battle since World War II.”

The women said that hundreds have been killed by US air strikes after being told to stay in Mosul; people were stopped from leaving were then bombed. The protest was organised by a group of Iraqi women, one of whom told me a nine-year old relative in Mosul had died earlier today. The photographs they held up showed some of the results of the US bombing.

Iraqis protest US killing in Mosul

Britain First & EDL exploit London attack – Westminster

Extremist right-wing groups including Britain First and the EDL (English Defence League) were quick to exploit the London terror attack to fuel their anti-Muslim and anti-migrant racist propaganda, both organising marches. Police had imposed restrictions on both marches confining them to particular short routes to rally points on the Emabankment. London Antifascists and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who had come to opposed them were only allowed to hold a static protest.

I was able to photograph Britain First at their designated meeting point in the taxi area outside Charing Cross station where their leader Paul Golding arrived with a van full of flags and handed them out, while his deputy Jayda Fransen was busy talking to the media.

The EDL were supposed to be meeting in Trafalgar Square, but were actually gathering in their usual pub, Lord Moon of the Mall, close to the top of Whitehall. Police were busily and rather forcefully keeping back a crowd of antifascists against the shops on the opposite side of the road, injuring a few of them in the crush. Police behind them were shouting at them to go forward, but police in front were preventing them from doing so.

I photographed the EDL on the pavement in front of the Lord Moon of the Mall over the shoulders of a line of police protecting them, but left as police pushed them back inside the pub and returned to Britain First at Charing Cross station where they were getting ready to march.

There were few people on the street as they marched down to the Embankment for a rally, but a couple of women shouted at them calling them racists. Police stopped the marchers from moving towards them, but they had to refuse a Britain First fake-news team who tried to stop them for an interview.

I listened to the rally for a few minutes then tried to go back up Northumberland Avenue to photograph the EDL march, but it was hard to see for police surrounding it. The police quickly went to grab one woman who started to shout at this march.

But the police relaxed their cordon when the marchers reached their rally pen on the Embankment and I was able to walk past them and began to take pictures.

But after a couple of minutes one of the stewards saw me and objected to me being their and called on the police to remove me, after which I had to photograph over the shoulders of the police. One of the officers came to tell me off for having been in with the marchers, but I simply told her I had every right to be there. Shortly after I decided to leave as I had taken enough pictures, and I decided to go to photograph the counter-protesters.

More at Britain First & EDL exploit London attack.

UAF protest extreme right marches

Police had decided that the UAF could only hold a static protest on the Embankment rather than their intended and already advertised march to there from South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, despite ‘facilitating’ the two extreme-right marches. The UAF had turned up at South Africa House on the morning and police had slowly with unnecessary force pushed them down the march route as I’d witnessed earlier in the day.

From the EDL rally I could see and just hear the Unite Against Fascism rally taking place perhaps a hundred yards away down the Embankment, shouting ‘Fascist Scum off our streets’ and other slogans. From the speeches I had heard at the two right-wing rallies both groups were clearly racist and Islamophobic and among the marchers I recognised many faces from clearly fascist organisations I had photographed in the past.

I could see and hear that there were speeches at the UAF rally but not make out what was being said from the distance and over the noise. I tried to walk down towards the UAF but police would not let me take the short direct route despite my showing my press card.

I had to walk back and out onto Whitehall and then around to get to be back of the UAF rally, and by the time I got there many of the counter-protesters had left for home and the speeches had ended, though there were still rather more around than at the two right-wing rallies combined.

UAF protest extreme right marches

Housing: Focus E15 – Newham Show 2016

Housing remains a major problem, with many people and families in London still having to live in inadequate and often dangerous conditions. It isn’t that there is a shortage of homes, as many lie empty. There is a shortage, but it is of homes that people can afford to live in.

What London desperately needs is more low-cost housing. Council housing used to provide that, and by the late 1970s almost a third of UK households lived in social housing provided on a non-profit basis. Post-war building programmes, begun under Aneurin Bevan, the Labour government’s Minister for Health and Housing led to the building of estates both in major cities and the new towns that provided high quality housing at low rents, attempting to provide homes for both the working classes and a wider community.

Successive Conservative governments narrowed the scope of public housing provision towards only providing housing for those on low income, particularly those cleared from the city slums, reducing the quality of provision and also encouraging the building of more high-rise blocks, something also favoured by new construction methods of system building. Housing became a political battle of numbers, never mind the quality.

It was of course the “right to buy” brought in under Mrs Thatcher that was a real death blow for social housing. As well as losing many of their better properties, councils were prevented from investing the cash received from the sales in new housing – and the treasury took a cut too. Tenants seemed to do well out of it, getting homes at between half and two thirds of the market price, but often having bought their homes found the costs involved were more than they could afford, particularly when repairs were needed. Many of those homes were later sold and became “buy to let” houses.

Around ten years ago I passed an uncomfortable 25 minutes of a rail journey into London when a young student with a loud public-school voice explained to two friends what a splendid scheme “buy to let” was. He was already a landlord and profiting from it. You didn’t he told them actually have to have any money, as you could borrow it against the surety of your existing property – or a guarantee from Daddy – at a reasonable rate. You then bought a house and let it out, through an agency to avoid any hassle of actually dealing with tenants. Even allowing for the agent’s fees the rents you charged would give you a return on your investment roughly twice you were paying on your loan. It was money for nothing. And so it was for those who could get banks and others to lend them money, though recent changes have made it a little less profitable.

New Labour did nothing to improve the situation, and even made things worse through encouraging local councils to carry out regeneration schemes, demolishing council estates and replacing them with a large percentage of private properties, some largely unaffordable “affordable” properties and usually a token amount of actual social housing. The situation has been was still worsened since then, both by extending the right to buy to Housing Association properties and also by changes in tenure for those still in social housing. Successive governments have also driven up both house prices and rents by various policies, particularly the subsidies for landlords provided by Housing Benefit.

I’ve written before about Focus E15, a small group based in Newham whose activities have prompted some national debate. Begun to fight council moves to close their hostel for single mothers and disperse them to privately rented accommodation across the country (like Katie in ‘I, Daniel Blake who gets sent to Newcastle), having succeeded in their fight to stay in London they widened their scope to help others fight for decent housing – particularly in Newham, where the Labour council under Mayor Robin Wales was failing to deal with some of the worst housing problems in the country – while keeping large numbers of council properties empty.

Eventually Newham got rid of Robin Wales (and their campaign almost certainly helped) but the housing problems remain. A few days ago Focus E15 tweeted

A leak was spotted on day one, now four days have passed with no proper washing facilities, and third day with faecal matter leaking from toilet soaking the carpet, with a flooded unusable kitchen. The repairs team say the family should be moved out. pic.twitter.com/5jakUzJ6K6
— FocusE15 (@FocusE15) July 6, 2021

Brimstone house in Stratford is the former FocusE15 hostel, now run by Newham Council as temporary and emergency accommodation.

One of Robin Wales’ big PR operations was the annual ‘Mayor’s Newham Show’ held in Central Park. Focus E15 were stopped from handing out leaflets inside or outside the show and on 1oth July 2016 set up a stall and protest on the main road a few hundred yards away. After handing out leaflets to people walking to the show for an hour or so, they briefly occupied the balconies of the empty former Police Station opposite Newham Town Hall on the road leading to the show ground in a protest against the Mayor’s housing record and policies.