Jumble sale – 2nd October
Posted on | September 16, 2010 | No Comments
11 am – 2 pm at St John – at – Hackney Church on Lower Clapton Rd, E5!
To raise money Hackney Housing Group will be selling high quality jumble – clothes, books, household items, DVDs, music, bric – a – brac all at amazingly cheap prices. There will be African & Turkish food on sale as well as tea, coffee and cake. There will be children’s activities going on all day including face painting.
All money raised will go towards London Coalition Against Poverty activities such as securing good housing for our members and campaigning against poverty.
We need your help! Please collect jumble and ask your friends to collect jumble and come along on the day. Jumble can be stored at the LCAP office before hand or if you have a lot and want us to pick it up call us on – 07931 698 438 . We also need lots of people to help out on the day as well as come and buy things. Contact us for more information.
londoncoalitionagainstpoverty@gmail.com
We respond to David Cameron’s threat to end life long council tenancies
Posted on | August 5, 2010 | No Comments
A spokesperson from Hackney Housing Group, part of London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP), said:
“Hackney Housing Group urges the coalition government to strongly reconsider David Cameron’s plan to end lifetime council tenancies. This plan, if put into action, will intimidate thousands of people who will never know whether their future in their own homes is secure. Mr Cameron has avoided tackling the fundamental issue of there simply not being nearly enough affordable housing in this country.
Council housing was not originally created for “people in need”, it was created simply to house people and it should be for everyone. We need affordable and secure rented accommodation to be able to work, raise our families and not fall into debt.
David Cameron does not take into account that our financial, family and work situations change. We might have a good wage one month and no job the next. Insecure work coupled with insecure and unaffordable housing puts us at risk of debt and homelessness.”
This is a deliberate attempt to scapegoat people who earn a wage and who stay in their council homes. Council tenants are not to blame for a lack of available social housing. This is a result of the failure of the Labour and Conservative governments to invest in building new social housing and the ideologically driven policy of selling off council estates.
Hackney Housing Group proposes that people living in council housing should pay a fixed percentage of their income towards their rent, a maximum of 25%, across the board, making it easier for everyone to have affordable housing.”
LCAP is a voluntary coalition of co-operative groups which are based on the idea that through solidarity and direct action, ordinary people have the power to change our own lives. For more information please call 07931 698 438, email londoncoalitionagainstpoverty@gmail.com or visit www.lcap.org.uk.
Hackney Housing Group Speak Out
Posted on | July 21, 2010 | 4 Comments
… as locally money is left unspent and nationally there are cuts to housing benefit.
Where is our £15 million worth of housing?
Hackney Council’s response to the housing crisis is to not bother spending the housing budget!
In the Hackney Gazette on the 15th July it was reported that Hackney Council failed to spend £3 million pounds of its Housing Revenue Account on repairs and maintenance to its housing stock while almost £12 million of its budget which could have been used to increase housing was left unspent. The need for housing in Hackney is huge. Nearly 19% of people in Hackney live in unsuitable conditions, around 2,000 households including 2,000 children are living in temporary accommodation (2008 figures, Shelter) and 9,000 households are overcrowded. Hackney Housing Group demand that the unspent money in the Council’s housing budget be spent where it is desperately needed; on providing us good quality housing and that the Council tell us immediately what has happened to the unspent money in their housing budgets.
We are often told that there is not enough money to house us in decent conditions. An example is the terrible conditions found in many of the flats that are, after a long process awarded to households in severe need. One mother recently visited a flat that had clearly been used to house several dogs. If she had accepted the disgusting flat she would have had to spend her own money to make it liveable for her toddler, including replacing the floor. Some of the unspent £3 million could have been used to make vacant properties decent before they are offered to homeless families, who do not have the resources to refurbish themselves and are forced into debt to do so.
While many of us spend years raising our children in temporary housing or trying to move from unsuitable properties Hackney council leaves properties empty. Some whole estates like Haggerston estate (waiting to be demolished and partly replaced with housing for sale) have been left unused for years. If money had been spent in the first place on maintaining those estates then we would have more housing now.
The Hackney Housing Group (part of the London Coalition Against Poverty) campaigns for good housing we can afford for everyone. We say the Council must, at minimum, spend the money that they have on increasing the amount of social housing. Hackney Council must scrap their current housing policy that does not prioritise social housing.
Statement Against Cuts to Housing Benefit:
Hackney Housing Group condemns the cuts to local housing allowance included in the June budget. These will mean many more people made homeless, who if eligible to be housed will join the 2,000 households already in Hackney’s temporary accommodation, and if not may end up on the streets. Those of us on the waiting list for housing will have even less chance of being housed. Recently several members of Hackney Housing Group have ‘bid’ successfully for social housing but discovered that the flat offered was a housing association property with market level rent of up to £400 a week. If we had accepted these properties then we would soon not be able to pay the rent under the new benefit rules and would be homeless again soon.
Some of us are on benefits but our situations do change. We may find work and we may lose our work. We need affordable housing that is actually affordable, where we will not be immediately made homeless when our situation changes. Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, has spoken out about the cuts to housing benefit as chair of London Councils [http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/1016678/Housing-allowance-cap-force-thousands-Londoners-homes/], but his own Council’s housing strategy is to push us into private housing that we can not afford. We demand more social housing and that Hackney Council scrap their housing strategy which does not prioritise social housing.
Contact Hackney Housing Group on 07931 698 438 www.lcap.org.uk
Defend Welfare National Day of Action – 16 June
Posted on | June 5, 2010 | 2 Comments
Benefits are our right, not charity!
No to workfare “Work for your benefits” schemes
Working Links doesn’t work!
Wed 16th June, 11am, outside Working Links on Mare St
Join Hackney Unemployed Workers group for the Defend Welfare network’s national day of action. We will be outside Working Links on Mare Street, exposing the private company that makes money while letting us down. Working Links does not work! We are forced to do pointless job searches, we are not given the training we want, and even when they find us jobs, they are temporary, low-paid and don’t reflect our interests.
The Coalition Government is talking about more use of private companies like this to “help us into work” (work that doesn’t exist: there are 43 JSA claimants for every job in Hackney). They want to penalise us into work, when their cuts mean there are even fewer jobs to go around.
Take part in the day of action with us:
11am-1pm Expose Working Links!
Write your own placard saying what you think Working Links is good at… e.g. wasting tax payers’ money, wasting our time….
Contribute to our “Welfare for all statement”: we are collecting messages which set out what is wrong with the way things work now and the changes people want to see that would help us. Add your message on the day, on our website, or at our stalls on 14th (Dalston) and 15th June (Mare St)
1pm-3pm Join the delegation to The Department for Work and Pensions
Cuts are in the air: job cuts, welfare cuts, wage cuts. But we want to put our alternative to the new Secretary of State. Forcing people to work for their benefits reduces the number of jobs, making people redundant does too, and wasting money on private companies like Working Links gets us nowhere. We want a fair benefit system that recognises our right to live – not just to survive!
(London Coalition Against Poverty can pay your bus fare if you want to come along)
Add your message on our website: http://hackneyunemployedworkers.wordpress.com/
Come along to one of our drop-in sessions, every Thursday at noon at Cafe Bohemia by Hackney Central.
See the National Network website: http://defendwelfare.org/
Clothes Swap and Jumble Sale
Posted on | May 31, 2010 | 3 Comments
in aid of London Coalition Against Poverty
on: 5th June from 4.30pm (straight after Hackney Unites event)
at: 17 Lilian Close N16 0SG (behind Barbauld Rd, 3 min walk from Stoke Newington School)
bring: unwanted (but useable!) clothes, jewellery, furniture, toys, bric-a-brac, music, films, games shoes and smiles
free tea, coffee and biscuits. children welcome.
50p per item taken from clothes swap. jumble sale items to be priced by previous owner. for more information or directions on the day please call Cathy on 07950105336