News from the AGM-How to Get a Council House. Guaranteed.

The avid followers of Newham Council on YouTube would have been a little disturbed to come across this notice regarding the AGM on 25th May.

If they had been watching live, they would have noticed that the mayor’s speech was somewhat interrupted by women from the Focus E15 campaign group (also referred to by the mayor as Victoria St). This has been cut from the video.

Here we see the brutal suppression of protesters by the security staff at Newham Town Hall, glad to see that their heartless oppression was condemned by the mayor.

A Brief History. Up until approx six years ago, when Focus E15 was run by East Thames Housing as young person’s accommodation, based on the foyer model, a dozen or so young women residents were deemed to be in need of additional support. This came in the form of a substantial additional payment to East Thames for intensive work to help these young women develop the hard and soft skills they would need to move out of the foyer and a success of their lives. 

Six years ago, it was discovered that East Thames had been taking the money and doing nothing extra. Some of the women had been in accommodation which was intended for six months for 18 and even 24 months. The women who had gone into Focus E15 with the intention of developing the skills with which to become independent, didn’t. Moreover, women who entered Focus E15 as single young adults somehow became single parents. 

The additional funding was stopped.

That was the genesis of what became the E15 Mum’s campaign where the women of that group demanded preferential treatment over every other applicant on the housing list. As we shall see, it seems that the mayor is about to grant it.

It appears to be that under the leadership of Mayor Fiaz, Newham has been moving families into accommodation that had been designed for single people in their teens and twenties. Unsurprisingly, they are not chuffed. 

Neither the mayor nor Cllr Mohammed seem to have developed any plans to ensure that families in temporary accommodation are not housed in overcrowded conditions, so quite where they propose to magic up the new homes is anyone’s guess.

Having criticised the security staff for stopping the campaigners from shouting from the gallery, the mayor went on to suggest that this was a normal and reasonable way to behave. The AGM was suspended and the mayor went off to chat to them.  Note to all future campaigners. If you want to get your point across, don’t write in; don’t ask to speak to council; don’t lobby a councillor; get into the gallery and make a noise. That seems to be the way to get your message across to Mayor Fiaz.

She also criticised private landlords, which is a bit rich given that she had 14 in her last administration and most of them are still there, (including one who shared the platform with her at the AGM and her Cabinet Member for Housing!). We will be scrutinising the Declarations of Interest in due course.

In a winding peroration in which she seemed to wander around more than usual she appeared to promise that all of the women with children would be rehoused. By Newham.

Ten adults making a noise and several children brought along to add pathos have resulted in a policy change. 

Now, of course, that could have simply been a cynical ploy to placate the protestors, it sounded good but there were no time commitments and she had already acknowledged that she had promised to house them all four years ago and had done nothing. But those observing the face of Conrad Hall, the Director for Resources noticed that he expressed a sudden pained grimace as the mayor let out her unplanned promise.

So, if you are living in poor accommodation. If you are overcrowded. If you are unemployed and want a better home. If you simply want to pay less rent, get together with some others in a similar position and make a noise. Set up a campaign on social media. Organise a picket outside the Town Hall on the night of a council meeting. Shout from the balcony when the mayor gets up to speak. It's okay, the mayor says so and she will stop the security staff from interfering with your right to protest.

This is clearly the way to jump the queue so we suggest that everyone does so.