Category Archives: women

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.

May day, May day! Our demands to Newham Labour Council

Carpenters Estate, Focus E15 Campaign, gender, homelessness, housing crisis, housing struggles, intentional homelessness, Newham council, statements, women

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!

Victory! Newham Council forced to reinstate housing duty

evictions, families, Focus E15 Campaign, hostel, housing crisis, housing struggles, Newham council, personal story, public action, single mothers, women

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.

Life on Carpenters Estate -a life worth fighting for

Carpenters Estate, class, gender, london, Newham council, personal story, women

A local resident speaks to Focus E15 campaign about what Carpenters Estate means to her.

When I reminisce about my best moments growing up, I always think of the Carpenters estate. I can’t imagine growing up in a more fulfilling community.


Across all generations we supported one another. You had the over 65s, some who had known each other since the 2nd World War. They had grown up together and then raised their children together. It was a very close, caring and supportive community that felt more like a family. Us children would all attend Carpenters primary school and play together afterwards in the lovely green spaces and park. There was so many different cultures too, I tried so many different cuisines and learned a lot by being around different ethnicities and religions. I actually believed the whole world was multicultural like the estate I grew up on, because to me Carpenters was the only world I knew.


Over the years we have seen people be moved away and relocated. It started with the Olympics. So many people were paid off and moved on. The place was becoming more and more deserted and neglected. There was never a problem to start with on Carpenters, it was just an inconvenience to Newham council and the London Olympics to have ‘common people’ so close to the games and the new Westfield. They were creating a new Stratford and we were an inconvenience to that image.


Now they are proposing to regenerate the whole area! That will mean 60% of homes being demolished. That includes my Grandmothers house which she worked her whole life to own, just to be told in her early 80s that she is at risk of losing it, because they need the land now for their new plans. It’s all what works for them and they never consider the people they are affecting. My Grandmother had been very stressed due to thinking she had to move. Carpenters estate is all she knows and she loves her home and didn’t want to move. Also she was worried about decorating or changing carpets in case she is forced to move.

The council have said that the residents of the estate supports demolition which is a lie.
Why would we want our homes destroyed? If they want to support residents, why not improve the conditions on this estate right now? We had already voted for refurbishment over redevelopment but now they are saying something completely different. They have been trying to degrade the estate to make it seem that they have the solution, which is to demolish, because in the long run, it’s what’s makes them the most profit, they do not care about the welfare and health of the elderly and the stress and affects on mental health of local residents.

We must Vote No to keep Carpenters alive and rebuild a community that they demolished years ago. Choose refurbishment over demolition. Community over Capitalism. Everyone deserves a place to live and to stay in their homes that they love and feel content in.

What can you do to help?

Join the Focus E15 campaign street stall outside Wilkos in Stratford from 12pm and then on the Carpenters Estate near the shop this Saturday 20 November from 1pm.

Please sign and share our petition to say No to demolition: https://www.change.org/p/civica-election-services-misconduct-of-ballot-to-demolish-60-of-livable-homes-on-the-carpenters-estate?recruiter=734527316&recruited_by_id=41c2ba70-520e-11e7-a8e9-3b39b4752e4a&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=share_for_starters_page&utm_medium=whatsapp&utm_content=washarecopy_31368841_en-GB%3A7

Decolonizing knowledge -young mothers as radical thinkers

Focus E15 Campaign, gender, housing crisis, housing struggles, london, mothers, single mothers, women

Thank you for the following thoughts by our guest blogger Toni Adscheid from Germany, who supported the campaign on the street stall and in meetings when he was in London, and who participated in our online meetings during lockdown. It is through back and forth conversations such as these that we are inspired to carry onwards and take up the fight for housing with greater clarity and awareness of the role campaigning plays in the tremendous struggle that lies ahead. Educate! Agitate! Organise!

Toni writes:

The following text is based on a talk, given at a conference on “Decolonizing the curriculum”
via zoom, to an audience of university lecturers, schoolteachers and students. The
conclusions I draw, derive both from my experiences in teaching undergraduate geography
students as well as my observations and interactions with members of Focus E-15 campaign
during the weekly street stall in Newham, organisational meetings and personal
conversations. I also want to clarify that I regard capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy as
inherently intertwined structures of oppression.


Contemporary neoliberal university practices attempt to fix the generation of knowledge
through curricula to the university, which is regarded as the only place for study. Moreover,
in neoliberal universities, students come to see themselves either as problem, because they
need to earn credit to graduate, or as professionals after they graduated. These attempts of
fixing the generation of knowledge to the place of the university as well as fixations upon
students as either problems or professionals, I argue, are two examples for colonizing
knowledge in neoliberal universities around the globe. In this regard, colonization can be
understood as the normalization of structures of oppression in which people are defined as
problems and offered salvation through institutionalized settings, which supposedly hold the
tools that people need to solve their problems. In the face of colonizing the generation of
knowledge through attempts of fixing (of students) and fixations (on the university as place
for knowledge generation), what would it mean to escape and thus refuse these attempts
of fixing the generation of knowledge to the university and attempts to fix students? For
me, this entails two things: To acknowledge that, outside of the university, people study all
the time and that amateurism should be encouraged rather than sanctioned.

As scholars like Stefano Harney and Fred Moten remind us, when we think about study we
ought to think as much about nurses in the smoking room as we are about the university
(Harney & Moten 2013: 112). Their argument opens up knowledge generation beyond the
walls of the university building as people constantly try to figure out ways to be with one
another, despite attempts to keep them apart, either by promises to become better by
themselves or by fixing them in place. This mode of study is what Focus E-15 engages in, and
what authors like Paul Watt and Penny Bernstock continue to emphasize. If we are truly committed to challenge current ways of colonizing knowledge, we have to look no further
than the street corners, the narrow alleys, the council housing estates. Here, in the outside
of institutionalized knowledge generation, people constantly try to figure out why they
ended up in their current situation but also think and practice how to live otherwise. This is
what Focus E-15 continues to highlight. People who are not recognized to have a voice,
especially young mothers in so called ‘temporary accommodation’, constantly figure out
ways how to escape and thus refuse attempts of being fixed, both in place and as persons.
They refuse because there is nothing wrong with them and nothing can hold them; they are
already amazing. As Saidiya Hartman wrote in relation to the US:

‘The decades between 1890 and 1935 were decisive in determining the course of black futures. A revolution in a minor key unfolded in the city and young black women were the vehicle. This upheaval or transformation of black intimate life was the consequence of
economic exclusion, material deprivation, racial enclosure, and social dispossession; yet it, too, was fueled by the vision of a future world that might be.’ (Hartman 2019: xv).

Young women, especially the young mothers of Focus E-15, are radical thinkers who never
fail to imagine how the world might be otherwise; this is what the campaign can teach
university students. This is what I convey in my teachings to my students in order to
decolonize knowledge generation: You are not the only ones who study, learn to listen to
the radical thinkers who continuously study around you. Initiating modes of mutual learning,
between in and outside the university, then becomes an imminent task if knowledge is
about to be truly decolonized.

My understanding of young mothers as radical thinkers then led me to the realisation that
neoliberal institutions, such as universities, fear those who they consider amateurs.
Amateurs who supposedly do not fully know what they are talking about, those who refuse
to be creditors after graduation, who refuse to graduate because they are committed to
study outside of the university. The university tries to get rid of that amateurism through us,
people who are involved in teaching. Our task, so we are told, is to enable students to
graduate by giving them credit. Hereby, those who do not receive credit are considered to
have failed, as they refuse to earn credit. However, as Focus E-15 continues to show, the aim
of study is not to become a professional (who supposedly knows everything) but about
fostering a kind of collaborative amateurism. This kind of collaborative amateurism in which for example a German PhD-student studies housing issues in the UK, can create openings
through which one can be affected by others, dispossessed and possessed by others. It
allows students to be opened up to the vast array of knowledge continuously generated
around them and to be affected by that knowledge; it helps them to realize that they can
never be entirely ready, never fully become professionals.

Practicing amateurism then means to acknowledge that study happens with each other, in conversation with those who never fail to imagine how the world might be otherwise. For those of us who are committed to keep ‘studying as amateurs’ it is important to stay with the trouble; even though we might be in neoliberal universities, we are not of them.

Harney, S., & Moten, F. (2013). The undercommons: Fugitive planning & black study.

Hostel accommodation – harmful to families

families, Focus E15 Campaign, gender, housing crisis, mothers, Newham council, overcrowding, personal story, single mothers, women

At a meeting with families from Brimstone House and Focus E15 campaign with the head of temporary accommodation in Newham, one of the mothers expressed what they are all going through, summarised in the powerful points below. This important piece of writing is going up on our website on 5 May. 

This is a very important day in the history of struggle in the east end, as it is the birthday of Sylvia Pankhurst, who was born in 1882, 139 years ago. Sylvia Pankhurst was a courageous fighter for human rights, for working class rights, an internationalist, a communist, an anti-racist and anti-fascist, an anti-imperialist. 100 years ago, in the east end of London, Sylvia Pankhurst was active on the streets, in the meeting rooms and organising to challenge the local council and the government about housing, healthcare, education…… 

The women of Brimstone House are continuing that fight for their rights and the rights of their children. Please read below and understand that the legacy of Sylvia Pankhurst’s fight goes on and we can still win important and inspiring victories and be part of building resistance by the solidarity of collective action and class struggle.

Long Live Sylvia Pankhurst! All strength to the women and children of Brimstone House!

This is a summary of what it is like Brimstone House, 10 Victoria Street, Newham, as expressed by the current residents:

  1. There is no welcoming process at Brimstone House and no information about how to complete relevant housing application forms in order to move on.
  1. It is not clear who the case worker is for individual families to discuss their applications or housing needs. When a case worker is finally assigned, it is near-impossible to get hold of them resulting in being bounced from one department to another, and having complaints/issues fall in between the cracks in the system.
  1. There are families living in Brimstone House for three years or more without a housing suitability assessment being completed and ongoing struggles to obtain bidding numbers. 
  1. The rent for studio rooms in Brimstone House is close to £800 per month, not including bills and council tax. A council home with two bedrooms, two storage units, a kitchen, a living/dining room, is about £500 a month.
  1. Single mothers are having to leave their work/jobs, to depend on benefits, because they are worse off working and becoming more impoverished by having to pay full rent. Universal Credit deducts 63 pence out of every £1 after the first £292.
  1. The studio flats in Brimstone House were designed for the purpose of a single person’s living accommodation, yet the council is now using them for families with three or more children, as well as partners. Families are forced to live, eat, share bunk beds/sofas, in the same living space. 
  1. It is shocking to think that anyone should be living in such squalid conditions in Britain, the fifth or sixth richest country in the world. Made worse by Newham’s slogan: ‘People at the heart of everything we do.’
  1. The flats have numerous hazards that also impact on life at Brimstone House, these include mould, bugs, rodents, and other pests (about which letters are frequently circulated). The other main hazard is the frequency with which the lift breaks down. Then single mothers, pregnant women, people with disabilities are seen carrying buggies, pushchairs, shopping, children up and down nine floors.
  1. The water boilers are often broken, faulty, or too small to provide what is needed in a British winter and often there is no answer to the request for plumbers to fix faulty showers. There are occasions when residents have been told to use buckets. Many flats have heaters that are not working, lighting is always faulty both in the corridors and the studio flats – and electricity bills are extortionate, often coming to more than £100 a month. The communal washing machine area is a health hazard with leaks and floods and inefficient machines which are known for recycling household filth.
  1. The bare flooring of wooden floors on many rooms are uneven and adults and children cannot go barefoot. Not being allowed to bring any furniture in means that families are forced to share bunkbeds and sleep on sofas, do not have enough chairs for everyone to even sit together to eat. Requests for more furniture are refused. 
  1. Children are the most affected by these living conditions, with an increase in skin allergies, eczema and respiratory infections and wheezy episodes. Their mental and physical wellbeing is compromised. There are children developing obesity because of their confined space. The restrictions being even more in the pandemic. Children’s toys and belongings often have to be left in the corridor as there is no storage space. This leaves parents in fear of possessions being thrown away as letters are circulated warning not to leave things there. 
  1. Children in Brimstone House have no space to study, to be free, and to form their own individual personalities in their own private space; Children are ashamed to have no bedroom or to say that they sleep with their mothers.
  1. The fire alarm goes off very frequently, sometimes daily at any time of day of nights. Children are dragged out again, having to negotiate flights of stairs, only to find out it is another false alarm. This causing huge anxiety. Security workers often have no knowledge how to pinpoint the fire alarm location. On 30 March 2021, an exit plan of the building in case of a fire was handed out.
  1. There are ongoing complaints about staff being disrespectful to residents and guests. Guests who are sometimes needed to look after someone who is ill or help with childcare, are often refused entry or there is the complication of an overnight form to be filled in and signed. This is supposed to be our home.

Newham Council! Brimstone House: No place for children

Mothers unite to say rehouse all of us now!

families, gender, hostel, housing crisis, mothers, Newham council, overcrowding, single mothers, women

Dear Newham Council, Newham Labour Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz, Director of Housing Darren Levy, Head of Housing Shaban Mohammed and Labour MP Lyn Brown,

The residents of Brimstone House, 10 Victoria Street, E15 need urgent rehousing.

As an emergency situation, it may be considered tolerable, as a living arrangement, it is cruel and punishing.

There is already a legal challenge underway but no action from Newham Labour council and now the residents are speaking out again.

We ask for a meeting with the Head of Housing, the Director of Housing and the Mayor of Newham.

This is how the Labour-run borough of Newham sees itself (https://www.newham.gov.uk/contact-information/vision-1)
‘Newham is a borough with a radical vision to build a better and brighter future. We are a diverse and aspirational place. By putting people at the heart of everything we do, we aim to enable all our residents to reach their potential and thrive.’

Tell that to the mothers struggling up flights of stairs with buggies and babies and toddlers and shopping as the lift is broken again. It is not possible and it is not safe.

Tell that to the mothers who are having to study overnight using their cookers as a table, because they don’t have room to sit in the main room, and don’t want to put on the light as the children are asleep.

Tell that to the mothers who are co-sleeping with one or two children and who have no privacy in front of their children, not appropriate, particular in front of boys.

Tell that to the families with exhausted parents and traumatised anxious children who have to be pulled out and rushed downstairs as the fire alarm in the building keeps going off.

Tell that to the families who can’t wash their clothes or their children’s clothes properly as there are not enough washing machines, they are substandard and very expensive.

Tell that to the families paying very high heating costs in Brimstone House, 10 Victoria Street with an electric key system that consumes large sums of money.

Tell that to the families who can’t all sit down to eat together because Newham Labour council doesn’t allow them more than two chairs in their room or flat.

Tell that to the families who feel dumped and abandoned in Brimstone House, with no knowledge of who their housing officer is, who have their emails unanswered, and who have no bidding numbers.

Tell that to the families who have been offered places out of borough and out of London, when their support networks, their work, their family and their children’s schools are in the borough.

Tell that to the families in the cramped and damp rooms with children who are forced to isolate during the pandemic.

Tell us all why the empty council homes on the Carpenters are not being used while a solution to that estate is being found. And what about all the other empty homes around the borough…

If Newham Labour council wants to be a radical council building a better future, then it must speak out and speak up and defend the rights of all its residents.

As Assata Shakur said:
It is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to to win, we must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

We ask for a meeting with the Head of Housing, the Director of Housing and the Mayor of Newham.

Thank you
from the families of Brimstone House, Victoria Street with full support of Focus E15 campaign

Move families out of Brimstone House NOW!

building standards, Carpenters Estate, Focus E15 Campaign, gender, hostel, housing crisis, housing struggles, mothers, Newham council, overcrowding, personal story, single mothers, statements, women

On Sunday 7 February, a mother of two in Brimstone House, 10 Victoria Street, E15, could take it no more and shared very personal photos of her home to illustrate the contempt that Newham council has for families crammed into the shoddy, overcrowded, damp rooms in this building.

For two years, she has put up with damp, with mould, with inadequate and expensive heating appliances, with a cramped situation whereby she has to share a bed with her children, with no bedroom for her children to sleep in, no room to study for the older one now of school age, no privacy for her.

Then came the rain and in it came. Now the children’s books were ruined, now the mattress was all wet and all their bedding affected. She packed up the room into boxes and bags to safeguard what was left and she asked a family also living in similar conditions in the building if they could take her children overnight, which they kindly did. The next night, she found space on the kitchen floor to put the children down to sleep.

Being an active part of Focus E15 campaign, this brave, resilient mother put out the message to others. Tweeting Newham council got a response, she was contacted and there was a promise of a visit to see and sort out the problems….

But this mother of two is clear, you can sort out the leak but you cannot fix the endemic problems of Brimstone House. The only way to reverse the negligence of extended stays in this appalling living situation, is to move people out to decent homes. Until then, the huge toll on adults’ and children’s mental and physical health will continue.

Focus E15 campaign knows that there are empty homes around Newham, and shockingly, has to repeat again and again and again what everyone, including Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, knows only too well – there are over 400 empty council homes on the Carpenters Estate, deliberately left empty for well over a decade, less than a mile from Brimstone House.

Residents of Brimstone House have voiced their issues loud and clear over and over again. In a recent exchange, mothers of young children expressed some of the issues they are struggling with in Brimstone House, in lockdown and with extreme difficulty getting replies from housing officers now that Bridge House and other housing offices are shut.

The constant merry-go-round of temporary and emergency housing: ‘Moving again with my child….we have been living in a hotel, then a friend’s house and then various shared houses. It’s been a physically exhausting year living in London, we have been moved five times already.’

The lack of security: ‘It’s really hard to see a way out of this … and then the empty horrible threats that they will remove our children. All this is magnified by constant insecurity, knowing we’re at their mercy and they really can do what they want. If the council was someone’s partner, they would say it’s an abusive relationship.’

Being forced into tiny spaces in lockdown in a pandemic: ‘It’s so narrow and the ceiling is very low, I feel boxed in. You can see the end of my feet is where the TV is supposed to go, glued to our eyes!’

Knowing there are empty homes nearby: ‘There is no way they can possibly justify not opening the Carpenters Estate and many others during this pandemic, I hope at some point we see someone held accountable for purposely keeping houses shut whilst knowing that we have been having a housing crisis for many many years.’

Being at the mercy of a system riven by division and discrimination: ‘And they purposely trap us in the illusion of their ‘fair’ system. If we don’t have jobs, they call us lazy, when we do get a job or try to pursue our education, they make it nearly impossible…Unfortunately a lot of people are either dismissive or insensitive, they don’t actually see just how oppressing and soul destroying this system is.’

The women show their strength and resilience: ‘Persevering in adversity is one of the many life skills we are passing down to our kids simply by living the best we can in these situations…’

The conversation ends on a positive note: ‘All they want is to distract us and make our lives not meaningful, they do not want us to achieve our goals because they know we are coming back to fight. All we need is NOT to keep quiet,  we should continue to use our voice, and I believe with the support of Focus E15 campaign together we will  win, they will hear our voice!’

Together we will win, they will hear our voice!

Get families out of Brimstone House now!

Resist! Reclaim! Repopulate!

Use the empty homes!

Telling the truth about what has been said, expressing ourselves on the street stall.
Mould growing inside a bedroom in Brimstone House
Where the TV is meant to go, no space for children to grow inside the flats in Brimstone House

No space! No light! No home for a family!

Focus E15 Campaign, gender, hostel, housing crisis, housing struggles, mothers, Newham council, personal story, single mothers, women

A Newham resident who lives in Brimstone house has been working with the campaign and has this to say about her living situation:

I am a 20 year old woman with a young baby. I grew up in Newham and am now a registered carer for my older brother who has a disability and cannot live independently. We both lived with my mum who is in full time work. I shared a bedroom with my brother. When I got pregnant the arrangement was still manageable but once my baby was born it was not possible to share the bedroom anymore. I had to move out.


I approached Newham council and explained the situation. No one will believe what happened next, but it is true. They offered to send a mediator to speak to my brother and my mother to negotiate me and my baby saying in the same bedroom as him. My brother’s disability means that he would not be able to cope with being woken several times in the night. It was embarrassing that the council worker thought it appropriate to offer this. My mother clearly turned this down but they didn’t take no for an answer and sent someone round to the house to talk to my brother. It felt like they didn’t care about or try to understand our situation. 


So they placed me and my baby in a hotel room as an emergency. I continued to care for my brother and, apart from my period of maternity leave, planned to resume my studies and my work. 
Then Newham offered me a place in Tilbury. I said no because I could not fulfil my caring duties with that distance to travel and a young baby.


I am probably lucky the council  didn’t accuse me of intentional homelessness and discharge duty to house me, like they do to so many people. Just before the March 2020 lockdown they gave me and my baby a room in Brimstone House, Victoria Street in Stratford, at least I am in Newham. But it is now nearly ten months. It seems like I have the smallest room in the block, my television obscures the window, it is no place for a child. 
I can’t afford the private rents, when I bid I am lucky to come 500th in line, and the council waiting list is a joke with about 24,000 people in the queue before me. 

How can there be a Labour Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz who promised so much three years ago and yet nothing seems to have changed (https://www.rokhsana.org/about/pledges/).
It is shocking to think that over 400 two- and three-bedroom flats lie empty on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford, yet families with babies and young children are left to grow up in terrible housing situations just a short walk away from the empty blocks

Refurbish and repopulate all of the council flats on the Carpenters Estate NOW!
There are over 200 families in Brimstone House. Let’s get together and organise to challenge this housing situation. Together we are stronger. There’s no time to lose. 

Newham legal team drag their feet.

families, Focus E15 Campaign, gender, housing crisis, housing struggles, Newham council, personal story, single mothers, women, ,

A Focus E15 campaigner writes…

Imagine a local government tasked with the housing of vulnerable and homeless people but who has either rejected or systematically failed to provide adequate housing and assistance. Imagine a redress system that on the surface claims to have the best interests of the people at heart, but instead punishes them for daring to challenge poor policy decisions and labels the brave few as intentionally homeless. Now imagine a council that responds to a legal complaint one year late with many inaccuracies in their written reply. Welcome to Newham in Britain in 2020.

It was also in the middle of heatwave in 2019, when I chose to take up the offer from Focus E15 and the Public Interest Law Centre to raise a legal complaint against Newham Council. In the sweltering July heat myself and another 18 residents chose to outline our discontent with the living conditions of Brimstone House now, 10 Victoria Street, and listed demands for a change in Newham’s housing policy in general.

Myself and so many residents felt with the weight of the law now behind us and the public interest surrounding housing conditions, especially for society’s most vulnerable in light of the tragedy at Grenfell, Newham Council would at least make moves to be seen to be doing something to address such injustice. Yet I cannot say entirely that it comes as a surprise to me that they have only chosen to respond to the legal complaint almost a year late and with no signs of change on the horizon.

Our challenge highlighted the damp and mouldy conditions that many residents of Brimstone were living through. Their response was to send council elected environmental officers who to no one’s surprise declared the block was fit for human habitation, and that, in their eyes, concluded the matter.

We highlighted the insufficient provision of laundry facilities within the block. The Council’s response? To claim there was no space for more machines and that it was out of their hands as the service was contracted out to a third party. This is despite the addition of at least 10 more properties to the block and a fire that took place in the laundry room in January this year. If that alone was not enough to bring the service back into the Council’s hands I fail to see what would be.

A long running theme within Brimstone House was the anti-social and prison like environment the Council has actively fostered via the presence of a security detail, numerous CCTV cameras and the imposition of curfews. To counter this residents have long requested that the only unused space left in the block, the conservatory, be opened up for communal gatherings and socialising with neighbours. The Council has claimed in their response to the legal complaint, that it has been available for use since September 2019 and has held an 8-week English language course. Residents have pointed out that they have never been notified that the conservatory space was ever open to them and the course only ran for 4 weeks in January 2020.

Focus E15 campaign is not blind to the challenges that a decades worth of cuts and a government wholly opposed to the idea of a welfare state faces. We acknowledge that Newham faces its own unique set of challenges being a Borough with the highest proportion residents in temporary and emergency accommodation. Yet you cannot deny the fact for 63 years Newham has been a Labour run council. What challenges or even alternative to unpopular government policies did our councillors bring to the table to elevate the standing of their residents? I am essentially saying the situation Newham finds itself in right now is not the fault of external, emotionless government policies.

2018 promised to be a year of hope and change for its residents with the inception of Rokshana Fiaz as new mayor. We were promised ‘more transparency, accountability and [greater involvement from] residents in decision making’. With genuinely affordable housing and the ‘safety of our young people’ being the priority. Yet in 2020 Focus E15 is still receiving reports of unfair evictions, cramped and inadequate housing conditions, dismissive and threatening council officers and the adverse impact these conditions are having on the children of residents living through this nightmare.

Below are a two more testimonials from the residents of Brimstone house hostel who expect to see changes to their living situation.The living conditions in Brimstone House are difficult and the cause of physical illness and emotional distress. We have protected the identities as per their request.

Mother of two, referred to as R

This mother has been living in a small room in Brimstone House since September 2019. R was told she would be there 56 days maximum when she moved in but she is still there with no news, no contact from the council and no idea how long this nightmare situation will go on for. Her children are three years old and ten months old. She has had no contact with a housing officer since the day they moved in. It is hard to look for work and arrange childcare when the staff at the hostel question everyone who come in and out of the building. Her room is small, the heat is intense and due to difficulty with the washing machines she has been hand washing all their clothes but told she couldn’t hang them outside to dry.

Mother of two referred to as H

This mother has been in Brimstone House since November 2018. She has a seven year old and a 14 month old. She has no housing officer and has not been allowed to bid for council housing. Like many other residents in the building, H has confirmed that the conservatory is closed-another place that young children could have for recreation and play if the council kept to their word. John Gray, deputy Mayor and head of housing in Newham, promised to open the conservatory for children to use in Summer 2018. H has been coming to the street stall and has told us that: “it is not acceptable how we have to live, we can not take this anymore!” During the heatwave the safety windows could only open a tiny bit making it impossible to sleep at night. Now her kitchen light has gone, the council haven’t responded to her contact about this essential repair and she has bought a little lamp to have light in the evening so she can cook food for her family.

Many of our campaigners and followers will know Marsha, who caused a justifiable stir at the height of lockdown during an international day of action – May Day – highlighting the unreasonable aspects of the housing crisis. With a banner hung from her balcony in Brimstone House, pointing out the injustice of isolating with children in a tiny room while 400 homes on Carpenters Estate, ten minutes’ walk away lie empty, Marsha highlighted the dreadful reality of being forced to isolate in hostel accommodation. Where is the urgency from the council to solve these issues? Three months on from the May Day protest and Marsha is still languishing with her child in Brimstone House.

As more and more articles appear that make the link between COVID19 deaths and overcrowding, and diverse communities – you would think that Newham Labour Council and Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz would be rushing to solve some people’s situation as fast as possible. However, there are still over 400 council homes still lying empty on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford, Newham, London E15. Now into the fourteenth year of being empty, and with a timeline for doing something about them that extends beyond this Mayor’s tenure, it is becoming clear that the value of the land is more important than housing the people.

To top up the roller-coaster ride the mayor and the council have put residents at Brimstone House through, along will 28,000 people on the housing waiting list the council’s legal team has rejected campaigners from speaking as a deputation at a online council meeting stating that that this is because there is an ongoing legal complaint between Focus E15 campaign, Public Interest Law Center and the council. When you look on the council’s website the slogan ‘people at the heart of everything we do’ is plastered everywhere. Yet it seems when people power takes action the furious foot of autocracy is there to kick us to curb. Help us publicise the raging injustice of the council’s response to our legal complaint, the many stories behind the brave people fighting for housing justice and take action to make a change and demand that the Labour Council in Newham starts by refurbishing and repopulating the Carpenters Estate now. No more lengthy processes involving exhibitions and form filling. The answer is yes – those towers should be full of people now. A local forum even came up with their own plan for the estate but it was rejected by the council. Why?

Whilst the council gloss over the legal complaint submitted over a year ago by Public Interest Law Center, we say that the fight for decent living conditions for all those stuck at Brimstone House must go on. The more we stand together, the stronger we are. Together we can challenge Newham Council and demand immediate decent housing and reopening of Carpenters Estate for the people of Newham.