VICTORY FOR ASHA AND HER CHILDREN – three bedroom home in Newham confirmed today! Asha and children were threatened with eviction and being moved out of London on 16 March, but she stood firm and with the support of the Focus E15 campaign the family have been housed in Newham. This proves that there are homes locally.
There has been a dramatic increase in evictions
Outside flats on the Carpenters Estate, that Newham Council had allowed to be boarded up. September 2014
whilst the Carpenters Estate in Stratford remains mostly empty -so let’s keep up the pressure – and demand that councils work for the people they serve. Social housing not social cleansing!
“Our campaign is one led by women most affected by the ongoing austerity which is tearing families from their homes and making countless people street-homeless. We are directly challenging our Labour council and the wider government. We’re angry, organised and are demanding change!” Read the rest of the article about the Focus E15 campaign written by Saskia O Hara in the Huffington Post
Robin Wales, mayor of Newham, guilty of breaching Members Code of Conduct
Newham Labour mayor Robin Wales has been found guilty of breaching the council’s Members Code of Conduct after investigation by the Newham Standards Committee into treatment of Focus E15 campaigners last summer.
The investigation was sparked by an official complaint, submitted by local resident and activist Kevin Blowe [1], after he watched footage (below) of Robin Wales which showed his aggressive verbal and physical response to the Focus E15 mothers and supporters of the campaign. This took place last July at the Newham Mayor’s Show [2].
This is a victory for the many people who have been the target of Robin Wales’ arrogant and rude behaviour and who have witnessed the contempt that he has for working class people in his borough over the last 13 years as mayor. However, Wales runs a tight ship and has managed to keep most of the criticism of him out of the public spotlight, including through attempts to muzzle critical Labour backbenchers [3]. So while this isn’t the first time that Robin Wales has behaved badly, it is one of the first times that he has had been held to account for the way in which he treats people.
Robin Wales, and his cronies at the council, continue their policy of social cleansing, sending people out of London to homes miles from friends, family and support networks, while leaving the Carpenters Estate in Stratford E15 mostly empty with perfectly adequate flats boarded up.
Focus E15 campaign continues to highlight the outcome of this policy that tears communities and families apart and demands the repopulation of the Carpenters Estate.
In the year when Newham is celebrating 50 years as a borough, we say that Robin Wales is not fit to be mayor and it is now time for him to go.
You can find the campaign on the Broadway, outside Wilko, Stratford E15, every Saturday from 12-2pm on the weekly stall. www.focuse15.org
The Focus E15 campaign is thrilled that Newham Council has found appropriate local accommodation for Zineb and her three children. The family had spent a sleepless night on the floor of the local police station, following their eviction on Friday 16th January.
Then, after being placed in an unheated and distant hostel in Barnet, Zineb, a council employee and single parent working for minimum wage, was rehoused in reasonable reach of her job and her eldest child’s school. The family can now begin to resettle their lives, following the shock of their eviction last Friday.
However, as the Council is paying the family’s rent to a private landlord, wider questions remain about the hundreds of empty homes on the Carpenters Estate (council owned), and in the Focus E15 hostel (managed by East Thames Housing Association). Public money is being put into the hands of private landlords during emergencies like this one, while publicly-owned homes remain empty. Zineb’s new flat is a great win for the family, but the bigger issue of poor and working people being pushed out of their homes and their communities remains critical.
We will continue to stand with one another to make sure Newham remains a place where everyone is truly able to ‘live, work, stay.’
Focus E15 Campaign 