Tenant voice must be heard
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It seems like almost every week there are new forces backing the demand for direct investment in council housing.
Defend Council Housing has organised three very successful, broad-based lobbies of Parliament, but transport has become a major obstacle for many tenants.
If more councils like Waverley are prepared to ‘empower’ tenants who want to lobby their MPs, then I’m sure that together we could pack Westminster Central Hall.
Significantly, 22 constituencies have submitted DCH amendments to Labour’s partnership in power policy consultation. Hopefully the fourth option will be on the agenda at the Warwick II national policy forum meeting in late July. It looks like ministers will be feeling the pressure from all sides.
More immediately, it is important that there is a strong tenant voice in the discussions around the government’s housing revenue account subsidy review. Unfortunately, few tenants know anything about it. Even those of us who thought we were in the loop didn’t realise there was a 31 July deadline for submissions.
I’ve rushed off an angry letter to the minister, complaining about the lack of effort to involve tenants: there are only three tenants on the working groups, two events this month are oversubscribed and no serious attempt has been made to get even the established tenants’ organisations to discuss the review.
DCH has put together a draft submission which we plan to finalise at a meeting in Parliament on 14 July (6pm, Grimond Room, Portcullis House). We hope that sympathetic (and even unsympathetic but professional) councils and council officers will help to ensure that tenant representatives in their areas get to read our draft submission (and the Dear Gordon 2 pamphlet that provides the background) and come to the meeting at Parliament.
Then they can make an informed choice and either formally support the DCH submission, reject it outright or produce their own. A copy of our draft can be downloaded from www.defendcouncilhousing. org.uk.
Alan Walter, chair, Defend Council Housing
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Readers' comments (4)
Michael Read | 09/07/2008 3:03 pm
Alan Walter and Defend Council Housing have achieved a considerable profile from claiming to represent the interests of tenants.
The claim to representation of that group would be more compelling if either of the two entities, Mr Walter and DCH, could be said to operate according to even the most primitive form of democratic principle and accountability.
He describes himself as chair of DCH. But there is no record of Mr Walter being elected by tenants to that position.
It gets much worse, however.
DCH has no constitution. It holds no meetings. There are no minutus. Officers of the organisation, including Mr Walter, appear to been self-nominated to the chair's position. There was no properly ballotted election among tenants of Mr Walter.
DCH appears to be an equally shadowy organisation. True, it holds meetings, goes on marches, produces a newspaper and impresssively enough, has more than 100 Labour MPs who sign its petitions.
But it's only by close scrutiny of the smallprint of DCH's literature is it possible to divine who the real owners of this organisation are.
To cut a long story short, its owners and funders are the public sector unions. They provide the money for this organisation which supports all these activities - a fact which would apparent if DCH followed established democratic principles of organisations and a set of accounts.
It is not difficult to surmise why public sector unions should choose to use tenants as cover for their political activities. They want to support policies which are in their interests but which they might find embarassing to be seen supporting publicly.
After all, ensuring that tenants pay more towards the pensions of housing officers than the officers themselves is not a policy which would endear itself to tenants - if they only knew.
Tenants would appreciate if the record could be set straight. Mr Walters has much to say about politics. Perhaps he could take the time to ensure he is seen to have a proper mandate to speak on behalf of tenants at all.
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Meric Apak (Chair - Camden Federation of Tenant & | 09/07/2008 6:06 pm
Camden Federation of Tenants & Residents Associations is one of many tenants organisations affiliated to Defend Council Housing and I’m sure many Camden tenants who helped set up DCH would take offence at Michael Reed’s attack on the campaign.
Alan’s credentials as a tenants rep are clear. He was only last month re-elected as chair of his own Tenants & Residents Association and as Vice Chair of the Kentish Town DMC representing all TRAs in the area. He was also elected onto the Camden Fed management committee at our last AGM.
Camden Fed has regularly sent delegations to DCH national conferences that decide policy and elects the chair. The last one a year ago on 12 July 2007 was overwhelmingly tenants. It debated and passed a long policy statement, elected a new National Committee and re-elected Alan as chair.
It is to DCH’s credit that it is such a broad based campaign uniting tenants, trade unions, councillors, MPs and, increasingly, housing professionals. In Camden and nationally we welcome support from trade unions. Some have members who work in council housing but most union affiliates (including civil servants, communication and railway workers, etc) are supporting the campaign because their members are council tenants and have children who need a council home.
The idea that the unions ‘own’ or bankroll DCH is laughable. DCH is so skint that it can’t afford an office or any paid workers.
DCH has always been tenant led and has never pretended to represent all tenants. It was set up to fight for investment in council housing and many tenants who support it are proud of the pressure that ‘our’ campaign is bringing to bear on government.
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kass | 16/07/2008 12:40 pm
I would suggest that DEFEND COUNCIL HOUSING should change into defend SOCIAL HOUSING or something similar and include the Housing Association and Housing Trust tenants. Council tenants and Housing Association tenants need to be together at least at national level, while at local level you can have branches like for example DEFEND CAMDEN COUNCIL HOUSING and DEFEND LONDON AND QUADRANT TENANTS. Social Housing can only be strong if we speak with one powerful voice. Of course there might be (there will inevitgably be) teething problems about how the various democraticv representatives will be elected both at local and national level. But once embraced the principle of each tenancy one vote we have to work to make everyhting accountable and transparent. But right now we have to applaud and support - AND JOIN - any initiative to bring about some effective say for tenants. DEFEND COUNCIL HOUSING is a great example how to go forward and hopefully get better and better...
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Simon Q. | 01/04/2009 10:22 am
Lack of knowledge and self-confidence to fight for their rights are the main problems of our tenants that's why most of them are abused by cruel individuals.Loan modification is for people that have personal loans for their housing, with a single mortgage to pay. Those that own multiple properties, whether for personal use or housing for renters, likely won't be able to qualify. (As WC Fields said, "Landlords should get the chair. For those that have children, increase the voltage.") Unfortunately, a program doesn't exist at present to aid tenants that are displaced as a result of foreclosed on rental properties, as rental units will not likely fall under the umbrella of federal loan modification .
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