Category Archives: Newham council

Evicted by Newham Labour council after 20 years, we say Jane Come Home

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Jane Come Home
Friends, family and campaigners support Jane outside her newly occupied flat

Jane is occupying her former council home as a political protest after she was evicted by Newham Labour council in March 2015. On Saturday 11th April, with full support from the Focus E15 campaign and many others, the doors of her former council flat were flung open and Jane threw a surprise house warming party. She was warmly welcomed back by her neighbours, family and friends. Jane was quick to hang up a newly made banner which states ‘Jane Come Home’ to the delight of her many well wishers and supporters who partied alongside her.

Jane has a daughter who is 14 years old. They were both evicted from their home on the 24 March 2015 after being a tenant of Newham council for 20 years. Another victim of the government’s harsh benefit sanctions, she fell into rent arrears when her Employment Support Allowance was suddenly stopped and her housing benefit cut. She was evicted because she owes the council about 5 months rent of £2,569 (this figure includes some court costs). She missed the court date due to a combination of depression, illiteracy and fear.

Help was in hand when her family offered to pay the full amount of rent owing but the council point blank refused the offer and said it was too late. On the day of the eviction Jane passed out with the stress and became another part of the tragic statistics for the amount of homeless families in Newham: almost 5,000 children are living in temporary accommodation. In the last two years alone, Newham has seen a 42 per cent increase in the amount of homeless familes, according to the  figures analysed by Labour MP Dame Tessa Jowell and released from the Department for Communities and Local Government. This injustice has to stop.People need homes. The council should start to address these shocking statistics by giving Jane and her daughter their home back.

After all, the amount or rent that is due is not much more than the monthly rent of one of the new luxury apartments that are mushrooming all over Stratford.We are asking the council to accept Jane’s family’s offer to pay the rent, clear the debt and allow Jane and her 14 year old daughter back into their home so that normal family life can resume. Jane’s daughter needs to attend her local school where she is due to sit her GCSEs.

After 50 years since Ken Loach made the film Cathy Come Home, we  are raising the issues of evictions and social cleansing in our community with the slogan Jane Come Home. Victory to Jane and all those who face the brutality of being ripped from their homes by council enforced bailiffs.

What you can do to help.

Contact Jane’s Labour MP Lyn Brown to ask her to put pressure on the council  for Jane to Come Home.

Telephone Lyn Brown: 0208 470 3463 Email: lyn@lynbrown.org.uk

Post: Lyn Brown, 306 High Street, Stratford, London, E15 1AJ

Tweet: @lynbrownmp

Share this story on  Facebook and twitter. Tweet Newham Labour Council @newhamlondon

Tweet the local councillor Terry Paul @terrympaul

Come to the next street stall on Saturday April 18th, on the Broadway outside Wilkos from 12pm-2pm in Stratford and then our open campaign meeting afterwards at the Carpenters Arms pub.

HOME FOUND IN NEWHAM FOR ASHA

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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
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!

Article in the Huffington post hits the spot

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“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

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PRESS RELEASE
Focus E15 Campaign                                                2 February 2015

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].

RW restrained YouTube screenshot

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

For interviews please email focusE15london@gmail.com or phone 07469 889 069.

[1] http://www.blowe.org.uk/2015/01/newham-mayor-guilty-of-breaching.html?m=1 
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsPxancNiqk&x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428
[3] http://forestgate.net/2014/11/12/gagging-order/

Victory! A home in Newham is found for Zineb and her children.

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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.’