Monthly Archives: May 2022

Newham residents disrupt council meeting due to mounting concerns about living conditions.

housing crisis, , , , ,

Victoria Street! No place for children!

At Newham’s well-attended public Annual Council Meeting on Wednesday 25 May, mothers and children of 10 Victoria Street, Stratford E15 (formerly called Brimstone House and Focus E15 foyer) stood up with banners and placards to make their voices heard about the unacceptable conditions in the building. They were brave and strong acting in solidarity together.

For years residents, supported by Focus E15 campaign, have documented every day life at the hostel – cramped,unlivable for families, appalling accommodation with mattresses that give backache and living conditions that lead to depression, damp and stuffy rooms, no privacy for women forced to change in front of their sons. Parents and children of all ages are forced to share beds together due to lack of space, there is aggressive security on the door and no space for children to play. Children and adults with disabilities live in unsuitable and distressing conditions and fire alarms go off through the night.

This is the horror of emergency accommodation that merges into temporary and can last for years. It is no place for children and families because it is a building designed for single young adults and living like this is effecting everyone’s mental health.

As the interruption of the council meeting began, security ran forward to silence the campaigners and take the banners away, but their voices were heard above the commotion explaining to the large crowd why this was necessary and that the appalling living conditions for so many in the borough must not be below the radar and buried from public view.

Residents from Victoria Street protesting at length of stay at the hostel and the effect it is having on their children.

The Labour Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz stepped down from the podium and came over. She officially stopped the meeting and took the campaigners downstairs with a few of her entourage to another room. The Mayor apologised for there not being any resolution to Victoria Street since she came into office for her first term in 2018 – embarrassing, shameful and morally unjust were her words. She admitted that housing services are a mess.

Then, significantly, Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, said that she would go back to the main meeting and in her address would announce the ending of the placement of families with children in Victoria Street. She pledged that by the end of the first year of this term, she would work to have all families rehoused from Victoria Street. Residents cheered.

Labour-run Newham council has the highest number of children in the country living in poverty, the highest level of homelessness, the highest number of households in temporary accommodation, more households on its housing waiting list than any other London council, and the worst overcrowding at 25.2% of households. There are also empty homes all around the borough and council homes that have been left to rot.

This is a key moment to note these promises and hold the Mayor firmly to them.

Victory to the families of Victoria Street! Collective action is the way forward. Housing justice for all now!

Join Focus E15 campaign on the weekly stall outside Wilko’s on Stratford Broadway, Saturdays 12-2pm.

Residents join in solidarity and raise their collective spritits to say rehouse us now!

Stop false promises and electioneering – we demand deeds not words!

Focus E15 Campaign, housing crisis, housing struggles, mothers, Newham council, overcrowding, Robin Wales, single mothers, social cleansing, street stall

Over the last 9 years, Focus E15 campaign has battled with Newham Labour Council about the conditions in Focus E15/Brimstone House/Victoria Street hostel.  While the name of the hostel has changed over the years, the appalling living conditions remain the same.

Here we go again. 5 May 2022 and time for local elections. Focus E15 campaign demand that the next lot of elected representatives, actually do something for the most marginalised in our communities and represent those living in overcrowded, shoddy accommodation. In the words of the East London Federation of Suffragettes, one hundred years ago, we demand DEEDS NOT WORDS.

Life in 10 Victoria Street hostel, Newham Stratford, London E15 in 2022

‘This place is like a prison. It is like three people living in a cage.’ Parents of a newborn baby in Victoria Street.

Nine years from the start of the campaign, Focus E15 campaign stands side by side with residents facing the same housing issues due to the same hostel. Parents and children are still being crammed into tiny rooms, with no space for homework or study or privacy. There is damp and mould, no ventilation, parents sharing beds with children, no space for babies to crawl or toddlers to walk. Residents are expected to use laundrettes at higher cost as the washing machines are dirty, with frequently broken lifts, alarms sounding regularly even overnight, case workers/housing officers who say they have too much to take on and to stop contacting them. There is additional suffering and worry about children with disabilities who need space and calm, and very little face to face support.

Focus E15 hostel

Focus E15 campaign emerged from the Mother and Baby Unit of the Focus E15 Foyer hostel over nine years ago. When the young mothers moved in they were told they would be there three to six months and out by the time the baby was crawling. However they were left for years with growing children, less space and eventually an eviction notice with no offer of either permanent, affordable or local housing.

Back when the building was run as a young people’s hostel it was owned and run by East Thames housing association and funded by Newham council. When Newham council withdrew funding and the housing association issued eviction notices, the mothers began to organise and take action to stop them being forced out of London to housing in Hastings, Birmingham and Manchester.

Clip from the start of the campaign

See a clip of Chris Woodhead from East Thames Housing Association in 2014 stating the hostel is ‘not suitable’.

The young mothers were fighting to stay local, be rehoused adequately, and acting to highlight the unliveable, dangerous and brutally depressing conditions Newham Labour council had placed them in – in the Focus E15 hostel, later named Brimstone House and now known as 10 Victoria Street.

The battle for housing justice went up a gear in 2013/14, once residents knew of the empty homes all around the borough and over 410 empty council homes on the Carpenters Estate. Having destroyed them by leaving them empty for over a decade, now the council are on-track to demolish these council homes and replace them with various types of housing, none of it council.

In the last nine years, Focus E15 campaign has been a thorn in the side of Newham council, seeing off the Mayor Robin Wales and now taking on Rokhsana Fiaz. There has been a weekly stall, marches, occupation of empty homes on the Carpenters Estate less than a mile away from Victoria Street. Residents have spoken in deputations to the Mayor in full council meetings and with the support of the Public Interest Law Centre there has been a formal complaint with testimonies of residents in Victoria Street. Shamefully, the council dragged its heels, replied a year later inadequately, and the ombudsman refused to take it further.

The Labour council promises much but delivers little. People are still facing evictions, labelled intentionally homeless, moved out of borough or out of London, away from family and support networks. Rokshana Fiaz came into power in 2018 promising to tackle homelessness and poverty – shame on the council for the conditions still facing families in 10 Victoria Street.

At the peak of the pandemic, Newham Council has the highest number of children in the country living in poverty, the highest level of homelessness, one out of every 24 people, the worse level of air pollution in the whole of Britain, the worst overcrowding at 25.2% of dwellings. Newham has over 4,500 households in temporary accommodation and over 27,000 households on its housing waiting list. By June 2020, Newham had the second-worst Covid19 death rate in the country.

There is resistance in Newham from all sorts of groups and campaigns and this includes Focus E15 campaign and the parents in 10 Victoria Street.

Focus E15 campaign has a clear message for Newham Labour Council – Victoria Street is no place for children! Rehouse residents now!

We will continue to organise together as collective action is what achieves the most and empowers us all. It is how we learn together and fight for a better future.

Join us on Saturday outside Wilkos on the Broadway in Stratford from 12pm-2pm with residents from Victoria Street hostel to campaign for decent homes for all and to

Educate! Agitate! Organise!