On Saturday 7 June Focus E15 campaign is joining the Housing Bloc on the People’s Assembly national demonstration, with a clear message Welfare not Warfare.
Join us!
Since our inception, Focus E15 has sought to draw international links between the struggle for land and housing in London/Britain and struggles abroad.
Nowhere is this more significant than in the struggle against settler colonialism and Zionism in Palestine, which has seen Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign destroy or damage 92% of homes in the Gaza strip (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, January 2025), as well as bomb hospitals, schools, universities and deliberately murder journalists, paramedics, doctors, nurses, teachers, target civilians and, since 2 March, block all aid entering Gaza, including food, water, fuel, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
Israeli occupation forces have also increased their repression in the West Bank, where over 40,000 people were displaced from their homes in the first two months of 2025 alone, while house demolitions continue.
As a housing campaign based in Britain—the country responsible for the British Mandate in Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine— we recognise that the political system that keeps families in Britain in slum housing is the same system that is funding and arming the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, through continued financial, military, and political support for the Israeli state. The same shameless capitalist and imperialist Labour Party we’ve opposed locally in Newham has revealed its true face in government.
We cannot fight for housing justice in Britain in isolation, we are internationalists, who fight racism at home and abroad.
We will continue to raise the Palestinian flag as we have done over the last 12 years. We encourage all housing campaigners to do so as well.
Together we are stronger.
Victory to the resistance in Palestine – let’s Educate! Agitate! Organise! here in Britain!
A home is more than just four walls – it’s a place of safety, stability, and joy. But a lot of women can’t find a decent, secure place to live. From domestic violence to economic inequality, women are disproportionately affected by precarious housing, evictions, and homelessness. Local councils are letting families down, shoving them into unsafe, overcrowded, and uninhabitable temporary accommodations. And mothers are forced to raise their children in places no one should be expected to live.
At Focus E15, we fight for housing justice because everyone deserves a safe, secure, and permanent home.
Why is housing a feminist issue?
1. Women face higher risks of homelessness and housing precarity Women, especially single moms, abuse survivors, and migrants, are way more likely to end up without a home or living in sketchy housing. They’re the first to get hit when social housing and benefits get slashed.
2. Domestic violence is the leading cause of women’s homelessness Domestic violence is a major reason why women become homeless. Housing policies often fail to offer safe and stable options, forcing women to choose between staying in an abusive situation or being left without a home.
3. The housing system is built on gendered economic inequality The gender pay gap and the lack of affordable childcare push many women into precarious jobs, making it harder to afford stable housing. Women are also more likely to have insecure rental contracts, be pushed into informal housing situations, or experience discrimination when seeking a home.
4. Women in temporary accommodation are trapped in permanent uncertainty Councils and landlords ignore urgent repairs, leaving families in homes with damp, mold, and pests. Parents have to watch as their kids get sick while the authorities make excuses and delay fixing things. The hotels, hostels, and shelters often don’t have privacy, safety, or stability. Many of them aren’t even suitable for families. Women have to deal with harassment, overcrowding, and having their freedom restricted. Mothers are forced to endure terrible conditions daily just because those in power refuse to act.
5. Women’s struggles for housing justice shape resistance And yet, women have played a vital role in global housing struggles—from the Glasgow Rent Strikes in 1915 to contemporary feminist movements worldwide. Women have long fought for their housing rights, creating mutual aid networks and building feminist infrastructures. And we’ll do it again.
What can we do?
· EDUCATE– Know your rights. Speak to housing support groups and campaigns.
· ORGANISE – Connect with other women facing similar challenges. Build collective power to demand change.
· AGITATE – Take action! Join protests, challenge unjust housing policies, and fight for long-term homes.
A feminist approach to housing means recognising that secure homes are essential for dignity, equality, and freedom for all.
We are postponing our meeting this Saturday 14 October. It will take place on a new date to be announced very soon.
A march for Palestine has been called for the same date.
Focus E15 campaign supports the Palestinian people and their resistance movement. We will be marching in central London on Saturday 14 October to show our solidarity with Palestine.
The struggle for housing in Newham is part of the international struggle for justice for the poor and oppressed all over the world. A struggle against capitalism, against racism and imperialism.
Join Focus E15 on the march this Saturday 14 October and see you on the stall outside Wilko’s the following Saturday 21 October 12-2pm.
Below is the original info about the event that has now been postponed.
Focus E15 campaign is hosting a public meeting to mark 10 years of housing campaigning in East London. Join us on Saturday 14th October at 2pm at the Carpenters and Docklands Centre in Stratford for films, fun and facts and to learn more about the international struggle for housing justice.
The campaign is especially excited to announce that Ghassan Abu Sitta, who is our guest speaker will be returning and he will discuss the struggle for housing in Newham in the context of the wider international struggle against racism and imperialism. Please listen to his excellent podcast recorded at a Focus E15 campaign meeting during lockdown.
This meeting is the next in a series of events we are hosting to mark our 10th anniversary – the first was our fabulous Ceilidh dance, called Heel-Toe-for-Housing which sold out.
The Focus E15 campaign meeting is free to attend, open to all interested parties, comrades and friends and the details are:
Date: Saturday 14 October Time: 2pm-5pm Venue: Carpenters and Dockland Centre, 98 Gibbons Road, Stratford, E15 2HU
EDUCATE. AGITATE. ORGANISE.
Residents from Marlin Apartments in Stratford highlight the issue of bed bugs with one of Andrew Coopers political community banners.
Focus E15 campaign is marking 10 years of existence/resistance and fighting for housing by hosting a ceilidh courtesy of the fantastic E15 ceilidh band. Expect live music, lots of laughter and positive vibes in an wonderful venue.
The word Ceilidh (kay-lee) descends from the Gaelic word for a gathering. The beauty of a ceilidh (similar to a Barn Dance) is that everyone can take part, young or old, experienced dancers, beginners, adults and children alike.
Plus DJ daggers will be on hand to keep the vibes upbeat.
Remember to buy your tickets in advance to ensure your entry, although there will be a few tickets on the door too.
Together we are stronger! We look forward to welcoming you there.
Date: Saturday 23 September Doors: 7:30pm -11pm Venue: Round Chapel Old School Rooms, 2 Powerscroft Road, Hackney, London, E5 0PU
Monday 22 May, Newham’s annual full council meeting in the Old Town Hall Stratford.
Focus E15 campaign joined members of London Renters Union (LRU) and PEACH outside the town hall. With placards, banners and flags flying there were speeches and chants on the megaphone. It was lively and militant. Every councillor who went in got a leaflet about the LRU campaign SafeHomesNow. Newham council must take action against landlords who rent unsafe homes, who don’t respond to tenants’ issues and who share details with the Home Office of a tenant who is a migrant.
We are now near the end of May 2023 – the month when the Labour Mayor and council promised that every family with children would have moved out of 10 Victoria Street. But no, over 50 families are still stuck in the substandard overcrowded inappropriate accommodation, sharing beds, no space to play, and with no space to do homework.
So we decided to go in to the meeting to make sure all the councillors and members of the public present are up to date with this matter. They would have preferred to have continued the chats in the corridor but we thought it time to go in with people directly effected by housing insecurity and living in overcrowded housing misery.
As instructed, members of the town hall security staff were heavy-handed and pushed pulled and dragged the protesters out. After the meeting resumed, Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz was forced to comment, reaffirming her commitment to move families with children out from Victoria Street, with all the excuses the council repeatedly gives as to why it is so difficult, and then spoke of the millions of pounds the council is going to spend for ‘option appraisals’ and the ‘reconceptualising of the building’ at 10 Victoria Street.
We chanted Deeds not Words as we left the council chamber, our heads held high, determined to fight on for housing justice for all.
If you want to take action on housing, join Focus E15 campaign on the weekly Saturday stall 12-2pm outside Wilko’s on Stratford Broadway, follow us on facebook for the latest information about meetings and events.
Our demands on May 1st 2023 : All families must be moved from 10 Victoria Street as a matter of urgency , into suitable and long term accommodation.
Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, stated at a council meeting one year ago that by May 2023 “I will be making sure all of those families with children will be moved out of Victoria Street and no other families will be placed there.” However this has not happened , adding to the remaining families sense of ‘moral injustice’ and growing anger. We will not stop campaigning until all the families are moved out of Victoria Street into suitable accommodation.
Open all empty homes in the borough to house homeless individuals and families. We are aware of empty and suitable council homes, in a borough with one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. This is outrageous – open these council homes now!
Repair, refurbish and repopulate the Carpenters Estate. People need long-term council homes now, not shoddy Temporary Accommodation! In the interests of the community and the planet, we say repair, refurbish and repopulate this estate with long-term council tenants!
End the use of ‘intentional homelessness’. We call on Newham Council to reject the malicious practice of labelling individuals and parents ‘intentionally homeless’. No one is intentionally homeless and the council must stop using this tool to shirk their responsibilities on homelessness. Furthermore, the use of threats by housing officers to parents such as we will rehouse your children and not you must cease immediately.
We say to Newham Council – resist or resign! Join the campaign on the streets next Saturday from 12-2pm outside Wilkos on the Broadway in Stratford to plan the next actions!
A mother and child, survivors of domestic abuse were labelled by the Council as having made themselves intentionally homeless, and therefore, the council discharged its housing duty to this family.
The family, who are living in an overcrowded hostel, had questioned the Council over an unsuitable offer of housing because the new property was in an area that is local to the perpetrator. What follows from a discharge of housing duty is eviction and often, a referral to social services. The family were extremely frightened and upset.
Due to having no option but to fight back, this mother was involved in collective action with Focus E15 campaign, in a process that culminated in a demonstration outside and inside the full council meeting on 16 January, at the Old Town Hall in Stratford. Council officials responded by offering a face to face meeting.
After this meeting took place on 19 January the council was forced to reverse the decision to discharge their duty. The woman said:
The public support I have been shown since we protested at the Newham Council meeting on Monday has been amazing. On the basis of this pressure, today Newham Council scrapped the decision to discharge their duty to me and I am no longer threatened with intentional homelessness. Protest works.
Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz was also forced by pressure and protest in May 2022 to promise that all families with children would be moved out of the notorious 10 Victoria Street hostel by May 2023 as it is no place for children to grow up in. However, threatening eviction as an exit strategy from this building is a shameful moment for the Council. We must ensure that decent homes are now found.
Stand with all those families still languishing in Victoria Street hostel, and with all those moved out into damp, cold homes with mould that the council has allowed to fall into disrepair.
Housing Justice and Respect! No Evictions! No Excuses! No Threats!
Focus E15 will be celebrating on the street stall outside Wilko’s this Saturday from 12pm.
Focus E15 campaign in London send solidarity and strength to the Wyndford Residents and the Young Communist League for the Wyndford High Rise occupation in Glasgow.
What a victory this is and we salute your courage.
This action will shine a spotlight on the barbaric practices of councils up and down Britain, Labour, Tory, SNP, who sell off every bit of land and demolish homes at the expense of people’s lives.
In its drive for profit, capitalism will stop at nothing.
Focus E15 occupied boarded up flats on the Carpenters Estate in east London in 2014. The residents had been battling with the Labour council for years at that point and the battle is ongoing as over four hundred flats still lie empty on the estate in a borough where 25% of households are overcrowded and 1 in 12 children are homeless.
Last year Newham council paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to get the resident ballot they wanted on the Carpenters Estate and now ‘regeneration’ is about to start. But as you say in your statement, this is gentrification and social cleansing and the erasing of working class communities.
All power to the occupation of Wyndford High Rise.
A victory for one is a victory for all! Together we are stronger!
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
This morning, Sunday 23 January, Focus E15 campaigners and Carpenters Estate residents in Stratford, London were on the BBC Politics TV show, to bring further attention to the recent estate ballot process that took place on Carpenters Estate last month. Not only did Newham Council spend at least £350k to secure a ‘yes’ vote, but they tied temporary accommodation residents right to a secure tenancy to the ‘yes’ vote for demolition (of almost 60% of the estate!)
If the Mayor of Newham was really concerned with residents rights, then why move anyone into a council estate on a temporary contract? All the residents currently in temporary accommodation should be given secure council tenancies now! No demolition of the Carpenters Estate!
Focus E15 campaign will be back in Stratford this Saturday from 12pm-2pm on the Broadway outside Wilkos. If you support the campaign, please watch and share the video below.
Focus E15 Campaign 