GRENFELL AND THE NEED TO CHANGE

The tears and hopes

of housing boss Kate

Once again the plight of Britain`s voiceless tenants is getting attention nationwide. This week, Kate Henderson the leader of the country`s housing associations spoke out saying that these tenants were not really valued and it is time they were.

Ms Henderson is the recently - appointed chief executive of the National Housing Federation .What she said is almost identical to what the housing minister Mr Kit Malthouse MP said in an interview  highlighted last week in a post on this blog, Community Voice Carlisle.

Both Ms Henderson and Mr Malthouse agreed that the Grenfell disaster was the key catalyst recently to give a voice to the voiceless tenants. 

“The need for change for these tenants is most starkly exemplified by the lessons from the devastating Grenfell Tower fire last year.” said 38-year-old Ms Henderson in an interview with the social housing journal Inside Housing

Kate Henderson... haunted by the Grenfell disaster

 “When I first saw the images of the fire I cried, I hugged my children and I watched it all night. It haunts me and I think it probably haunts everybody working in this sector.

“I think one of the starkest things which came out of Grenfell and is coming out of the inquiry now is people feeling voiceless, and that can’t happen again.”

Ms Henderson has now embarked on a nationwide road trip, meeting housing associations up and down the country.

“I have spent a lot of time working with local government. I have gone to lots of events, and I am often the only woman around the table.

“In terms of my early engagement, I don’t want to just meet members in board rooms I want to meet residents, I want to see the homes housing associations have built and hear what people think,” she said.

This focus on the tenant voice is clearly a personal priority for Ms Henderson.

Grenfell...towering inferno

She was asked what she would consider as success in her role leading the federation. She said: “The  first thing  is “empowered tenants, a change in conversation, which is already happening, in terms of tenants feeling really valued”

Perhaps Ms Henderson will visit Carlisle on her  nationwide road trip.She might then drop in on the offices of Riverside Housing Association  a giant Liverpool organisation that bought the city`s 6,000 former council houses 16 years ago.

In the last few months Riverside has been facing the issue of voiceless tenants after challenges from Carlisle city councillors. Councillors want these  tenants to have a say in a new Riverside-city council liaison group.

A lot of negotiating took place but Riverside would have none of it. Tenants  are to be allowed  submit items for the agenda at liaison group meetings But  having a say at these meetings is forbidden says Riverside`s northern director Sarah Paton.

Perhaps Ms Henderson will have something to say about that if she visits Carlisle.

Riverside`s opposition to a democratic voice for tenantrs  is no surprise.  One of its first acts  on taking over the Carlisle houses in 2002 was to abolish all community groups that were set up by the council. Since then Riverside has consistently opposed any tenants` democracy.

One group  that luckily survived the deplorable Riverside cull was Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation ( then known as Carlisle and Rural Tenants` Federation) which publishes this blog.

"AGEING  ACTIVISTS STRUGGLING
TO MAKE AN IMPACT"

 Jimmy Devlin Chairman of the North West Tenants Assembly is a friend of the Federation and has been following the recent comings and goings of Riverside and Carlisle City Council  in their  negotiations to form a new liaison group.

Here are his comments:

"Since the late 1990's the Tenant Participation Advisory Service(TPAS)  has "co-ordinated" tenant participation (now involvement)  by replacing democratic tenants' groups with their own "appointed" chosen few.

"Across the North West numbers of tenant resident associations (fully constituted and representative) and tenants' federations have plummeted from more than 400 to below 50 in the past 20 years.

"They are trained to comply with the housing association's board position, supporting the staff even to the exclusion of their own friends and neighbours. Lots of these appointees are of a kind. 

"When was the last time anybody mentioned a tenant activist in the media?

"I firmly believe that only tenants elected by their peers are legitimate representatives of other tenants and the current involvement structures need scrapping asap and replacing with proper democratic tenants' groups which previously worked well.

"Tenants' Voice is totally controlled by the landlord , who holds ALL the power.

For any partnership to work both sides should share the power evenly.

"We should all campaign for the government to apply  Freedom of Information legislation to all housing organisations and tenants/groups can then do their own research and again start to hold these organisations accountable .

"TPAS was set up ostensibly to act as a training organisation for tenant activists who wanted to get involved with their landlords.

"Quickly I came to realise that TPAS had been set up deliberately to control every aspect of tenant involvement. With landlords firmly in control.

"Between 2003 and around 2009 I was working with TPAS as Vice-Chair of the Northern Region (NW,NE and Yorkshire and the Humber) as well as being elected vice-chair and later acting chair of the TPAS National Consultative Forum.

"Landlords were involved even then with all the TPAS structures.

"TPAS was funded by landlords to the tune of approximately £3,000  a year and claimed to "represent" about 1,000 tenants and more than 300 landlords.

"Training for tenants was usually at Northern College and Trafford Hall .

""Tenants inevitably fell into line without really realising how they were being controlled. I quickly realised what was going on and tried (mostly in vain) to wake activists up.

"This led to me getting banned from Trafford Hall and TPAS quickly closed down all their regional committees and the National Consultative Forum. 

"Tenants don't usually have enough time to properly  research how things really work until past retirement age ...hence the majority of us ageing activists struggling to make any impact when everything is stacked against us as landlords hold all the aces(power and resources)

""In the UK we also have to compete with the community voluntary service sector…self appointed know alls who claim to represent us , but really haven't a clue how tenants live their lives or what their estates are actually like.

"Academics are even worse...all theory and no common sense ….mainly extreme left wing do - gooders who always manage to make thing much much worse whenever they are able to control the agenda."
  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277 or 01228 532803