Category Archives: press release

Housing for all on International Women’s Day!

Focus E15 Campaign, gender, housing struggles, mothers, press release, statements, women

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.

Join the fight with Focus E15 Campaign.

What to join our next housing action? Email:

focuse15london (at) gmail (dot) com

You can also follow the campaign on social media:

10 year anniversary event – postponed! March for Palestine on Saturday.

Carpenters Estate, eviction resistance, families, Focus E15 Campaign, gender, housing crisis, housing struggles, intentional homelessness, mothers, Newham council, News, press release, private landlords, public action, single mothers, social cleansing, women

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Dear friends of Focus E15 campaign

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.

Please see the info here about the march: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/march-for-palestine-end-the-violence-end-apartheid/

Thank you all for your support.

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.

Focus E15 campaign, comrades and supporters will be discussing the history of the campaign with film clips shown to illustrate key victories from the initial campaigners and expand upon the lessons learnt over the last decade by drawing out the themes on this key article that was published on this site 5 years ago.

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.

There will also be a chance to see an exhibition of the amazing political banners by artist activist Andrew Cooper because his work is so important to the life of the campaign on the streets today.

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.

Why we’re having a knees up on the Carpenters

Carpenters Estate, Grenfell fire, housing crisis, march, press release

Resistance is necessary and together it is fun.

On Saturday 12 August, Focus E15 campaign and friends will be marching for safe and secure housing in Newham, east London, and demanding that Newham council repopulate the Carpenters Estate immediately. Newham has more people registered homeless than anywhere else in the country and 25% of people are living in overcrowded conditions. People are being decanted, evicted, abandoned and forced out of their homes at catastrophic rates; in England someone is threatened with eviction every 90 seconds.

Join us at 12 midday at Ferrier Point, Forty Acre Lane, Canning Town E16, marching, dancing, singing, drumming our way to Tanner Point, Pelly Road, Plaistow E13 for 1pm for a speak out, and then making our noisy militant way to the Carpenters Estate in Stratford E15 by 2.30pm for a knees up with the residents. Come to the whole event or at any place along the way. By 2.15pm we will be at Stratford Old Town Hall for the last bit of the march to the Carpenters Estate.We are marching because rough-sleeping and homelessness is on the rise and social cleansing is a daily reality. Luxury apartments continue to be built and council homes are being demolished.This is making people ill and it is a national mental health emergency. The fire that ripped through Grenfell Tower on 14 June was not an accident but the devastating consequence of housing policies marked by systematic degrading of council estates that are being demolished or ‘regenerated’ for profit.

In Newham, Ferrier Point, Canning Town, Tanner Point, Plaistow and Nicholls Point, Stratford all have cladding that has failed fire-safety tests. Newham council said it was the higher quality cladding than that used on Grenfell Tower, but at the end of June announced that contractors are assessing to see how quickly it can be removed. While extra security patrol these blocks, and smoke alarms and fire doors are in place, there has been no move to inform residents of the next steps. Ferrier Point’s cladding was fitted in a £3.5m contract with Rydon as part of an overall £8.5m refurbishment in 2015. Rydon subcontracted the work to Harley Facades Ltd. Rydon and their subcontractors were involved in refurbishing the Grenfell Tower.

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Meanwhile, in Stratford, in the shadow of the Olympic stadium, three other tower blocks on the Carpenters Estate lie almost empty. The estate has over 400 empty homes, due to people decanted by the council over the last decade, a case of Olympic regeneration for the rich, eviction for the poor. This is the reality of Robin Wales’s Labour borough of Newham, now spending the staggering equivalent of 125% of council tax on debt repayment, after reckless acquisition of LOBO loans and borrowing from the banks has left the council with £563m debt. The Carpenters Estate is marked for regeneration or demolition or both. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the resistance of the residents.

Join us at any point  on Saturday 12 August to raise all these issues in the sixth richest nation in the world! We must be clear that adults and children should not be left to rot in substandard overcrowded slum-like housing, in temporary or emergency accommodation. We must demand safe and secure housing for all.

Please share our Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1951128301839783/

Public housing not private profit, social housing not social cleansing!

 

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Evicted for handing out leaflets at a public park during Mayors Show

News, press release, public action, , ,

Report on the Newham Mayor’s Show

Focus E15 campaigners and their supporters went to the Mayor’s Newham Show on Sunday 12 July.

We wanted to let  the Mayor of Newham, Robin Wales know that the campaign for affordable long term secure decent housing goes on and we will not sit by and watch people being evicted and sent out of London far from their communities and support networks.

Last year at the Newham show Robin Wales was verbally and physically aggressive to Focus E15 campaigners which led to an investigation by Newham Standards Committee that found the mayor guilty of a breach of code of conduct.

Unfortunately this year, the security staff were physically aggressive. They evicted Focus E15 campaigners from a public park in a brutal manner. Their heavy handed, rough treatment was totally disproportionate to the actions of the campaigners who were peacefully giving out leaflets to interested members of the public. One Focus E15 campaigner was wrestled to the ground by his throat and he and other activists were forcefully ejected from the park. Our banners and leaflets were confiscated and they even took our leaflets away from members of the public upon entrance. Yet we know that all people have a right to be informed about the housing crisis in Newham and many people at the Mayors show are affected by it. Why is the council trying to suppress leaflets about the housing crisis from the public?

Meanwhile, inside the Mayors show, council officials were busy distributing their own literature which boasted about how much money the council ‘saved’ due to 50 million pounds of cuts to our services. Let us remember that this council has spent £563m on LOBO (Lender Option Borrower Option) loans – the highest of any council in Britain – on which they continue to pay huge interest – amounting to almost 50 million pounds.

It is clear that Newham squanders money while people struggle for housing!

Once we were all evicted from the park we chanted, handed out leaflets and put up our banners outside. Our campaign is growing and reaching out to everyone. Stand with us. Say not to evictions! Repopulate the Carpenters Estate! Social housing not social cleansing!

Please take a look at this video which shows the outrageous way private security guards behaved during the Mayors  Newham show.  Facebook video.

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

eviction resistance, families, labour, Newham council, press release, public action, , , ,

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.