Success! Walthamstow eviction stopped

Anti-eviction activists were supported by parents passing to drop their children at school

Waltham Forest TUSC supporters joined others to stop an eviction of a single mother and her two children in Walthamstow this morning. Local TUSC coordinator Nancy Taaffe reported:

“It looks like the possible eviction of a woman and her two kids has been temporarily won in Walthamstow today. However, I am visiting someone this afternoon who is facing the same thing and trying to help her, we met someone yesterday facing the same thing and and we met a mum on her way to school this morning who came back and supported us outside the house today, who is also facing eviction next week.

“This is an onslaught. The mass eviction of many women and their children …and the recent intensification of the problem means that we need a grass roots/ trade union response to physically stop the bailiffs, but also we need to raise secure tenancies politically- in every arena. The GLA elections are coming up, we have to make the London challenge about stopping the forced evictions and gaining security of tenure and access to council homes if you do face eviction.”

Two generations of the housing crisis in Waltham Forest

Laura and her daughter in their ‘temporary’ flat

Nancy Taaffe

Waltham Forest TUSC coordinator

The stories of Sandra and Laura Sharpe sum up the effect of the housing crisis on every generation of working class Londoner.

I first met Sandra in 2013. She’s a disabled woman living in Leytonstone. When the Con-Dems announced the introduction of the ‘bedroom tax’ – cutting the housing benefit of social housing tenants deemed to have too many bedrooms – we sprang into action on Sandra’s estate. We leafleted and called a street meeting one Saturday afternoon which Sandra came to.

The street meeting where Sandra first met TUSC

She told me about her family’s history of fighting to hang on to their homes – she remembers her mum barricading them in against the bailiffs when Sandra was young. That spirit had stuck with her and she was prepared to do the same and refuse to move – she told the local paper “they’ll have to drag me out of my wheelchair”.

Sandra was always prepared to move to a smaller house which was more suitable for her needs, but was desperate not to leave her community and the support network of friends and family it contained. Then the council started threatening her with eviction because of the arrears she’d accrued by refusing to pay the shortfall on her rent created by the bedroom tax.

We’ve been with Sandra from the start and never given up. I’ve gone to the housing office with her numerous times, we’ve organised protests for her and made sure she’s been at meetings where she can challenge local politicians about her situation. Now she’s in a nice new flat close to her old estate and the arrears are not being chased.

I also put her in touch with Wally Kennedy, a TUSC activist in West London. Wally helped get Sandra re-categorised for council tax benefit and now she doesn’t have to pay any for a year.

Sandra on one of the protests outside the housing office

Recently, Sandra introduced me to her daughter Laura. Laura now lives in Ilford, with her four year old daughter. In January 2014 she started a new part time job in Westminster. Her partner was working full time. Because of cuts to her housing benefit, she had fallen into rent arrears on her privately rented home in Walthamstow and was evicted in July. She had to take time off work to take documents to the council and to move house. Because of this time off while still on probation at the new job, Laura was sacked.

Laura said: “even before I lost the job and got evicted we were struggling. My daughter was entitled to 15 hours of free childcare but that wasn’t enough for the hours I was working. I had to find a nursery around the corner from my mum’s. I would drop her at mum’s in the morning, my mum would take her to nursery at 1, pick her up at 4 and then I’d pick her up after work. If it wasn’t for my mum, what would I have done? Even with that help I got myself in debt.”

Laura went to Waltham Forest council who put her into temporary accommodation – which she’s still in eight months later. The rent is £190 a week and the property is managed by letting agents Whitworth’s. The house has a blocked drain, bad mould in the toilet, the toilet leaks, the garden is a mess and the back fence is falling down. Whitworth’s said this would be sorted as soon as Laura and her family moved in but they’re still waiting. The day before I visited, her partner had lost a day’s pay to stay home waiting for a promised visit to carry out work – nobody came.

After contacting the letting agent about the repairs, Laura was told by the council that she’s in rent arrears again – around £400. She told me: “they only told me when I called about something else. If I hadn’t, when would I have been told? It would have just got higher and higher until I definitely couldn’t pay.”

It’s still not clear how the arrears have come about as Laura’s housing benefit was calculated at £190 a week – enough to cover all her rent.

“We’re really struggling, especially with me not working. Out of less than £200 I get a month I pay £100 for council tax. Then there’s gas and electric, and because the place is so cold we were spending £20 a week on gas. We’ve had to borrow money from friends to try and get by. Now the landlord’s put the rent up.

“When I first went to the council they said they could help me get a part rent-part buy place. How’s that going to happen when I don’t have money for a deposit, I’m not working and they don’t accept housing benefit? And I can’t afford to go back to private renting – if I could then I wouldn’t have lost the one bedroom place I had before. We need a council house.”

We need urgent action to provide enough decent, affordable homes for all those who need them. That’s part of what TUSC is fighting for.

TUSC brings activists together to demand Housing For All!

Nancy Taaffe, TUSC prospective parliamentary candidate for Walthamstow, introduces the meeting

Waltham Forest Trade Unionist and Socialist coalition held an important and successful public meeting on the housing crisis on 3 December. The meeting was joined by four residents of Fred Wigg and John Walsh towers, Sandra Sharpe who has been fighting the bedroom tax, and several young people concerned about the situation in private renting. Nancy Taaffe, prospective TUSC candidate for Walthamstow in next May’s general election, introduced the meeting and highlighted the different campaigns that have erupted in the last year. For example, the Focus E15 Mums campaign was launched by single mothers in Newham who faced eviction from their homeless hostel because of cuts by the Labour council. The New Era campaign is fighting extortionate rent rises and possible eviction. Nancy pointed out the important role of residents refusing to move when faced with eviction. She also called for councils to use their compulsory purchase powers to forcibly take over housing when huge rent rises are threatened and transform the units into social housing.

Locally, we are at the start of a campaign to defend Fred Wigg and John Walsh towers in Leytonstone. The council is trying to force through renovations of the blocks by a private developer. Nancy called for the £10 million (that the council has said is available) to be spent on the renovations – not held hostage to force residents to agree to the council’s preferred plan (including privatisation, sell-offs and building between the blocks). Nancy said that those residents who want to move should be able to do so with the guarantee of secure tenancies and social rents elsewhere. But those who don’t want to move should refuse to go. We have to argue that social housing is a public good – when people move on to somewhere else, the housing should go to others from the community who are in housing need. The consequence of these attacks on social housing, Nancy said, is that younger people are a captive market in the private renting sector. They face completely uncontrolled rents and crippling insecurity. TUSC calls for rent control, democratic rent councils to decide fair rents, an end to the bedroom tax and a mass programme of building and renovating council homes.

Louise Cuffaro, chair of the tenants federation, chairs the meeting

Louise Cuffaro, chair of the tenants federation, who chaired the meeting, appealed to people to collect signatures on the TUSC petition calling for rent control in the borough. She said that those social housing residents on the tenants committees in the borough could potentially get thousands of signatures between them in support of private renters, who in turn should get involved in the campaigns to defend social housing. In this way, this TUSC meeting was important for bringing people with different individual housing concerns together to agree on common demands and strategy. What was universally agreed is that the Labour Party is not willing to take the types of action necessary to guarantee everyone a decent, affordable home. The movement developing against the housing crisis needs a political voice, which is why building TUSC, including through May’s general election campaign, is a vital part of the struggle.

TUSC calls for rent control and council house building

Help us collect 4,000 signatures for rent control

Collecting signatures in Leytonstone

During our campaign for the local elections in May, we promised to campaign for decent and genuinely affordable housing, regardless of the outcome. The 5,482 votes we received were a roaring endorsement for these policies (you can read our programme on housing here) So now we’re stepping up the campaign.

As a first step, we want to collect the 4,000 signatures necessary to force a debate in the council chamber on the issue of rent control. If we reach the target by the start of October, we will be able to put our case and demand an answer from the councillors on why they seem unwilling to take action to ensure everyone in the borough can afford a decent place to live.

We will have activities across the borough almost every day over the summer and into the autumn. Stop by one of our stalls or get in touch to find out when we’ll be near you if you’d like to come along to help.

You can also collect signatures yourself – download the petition here and ask friends and family to sign and then return the form to us: paper_petition_template_rentcontrol

The petition can also be signed online here – please circulate on all email loops and social media.

TUSC campaign a success for anti-cuts movement in Waltham Forest

Campaigning on Walthamstow Market

The results
In our first time standing widely across the borough, Waltham Forest Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) gained 5,482 votes. This is a great success for our 33 candidates and all supporters and campaigners.
TUSC candidates received 3% of the overall vote, which is about 5% when adjusted for the number of seats we stood in. In High Street ward, where we stood a full slate, we got 5.2% of the vote; the same in Leytonstone with 4.9%. Our highest vote, 362 for Dan Gillman in Markhouse, means more than 11% of voters in the ward voted for Dan. That our vote held up regardless of how many candidates stood in each ward shows the real advantage of standing widely and will hopefully encourage other trade unionists and campaigners to join us next time to ensure we can contest all 60 seats.

Some of our candidates

The stand
Even before election day, the campaign was a big achievement. Working class people are told that politics is not for us – to leave it to the men in suits. So to gather 33 ordinary people who live and work in Waltham Forest to stand against all the pro-cuts parties, was a feat in itself. Our list included 5 workers from Whipps Cross hospital, 4 members of the RMT transport union (which supports TUSC nationally and also helped fund the campaign) a firefighter, teachers, young people and community activists.
We all pledged something that none of the other parties will dare to – we would vote against all cuts to jobs and services and stand side by side with the people of Waltham Forest to lead a mighty campaign against Eric Pickles and the Con-Dem government. Instead of a fight like this, Labour councillors meekly put up their hands in favour of cuts and claim there’s nothing they can do.

Preparing the cars for our cavalcade

The campaign
If election results depended purely on who had run the best campaign, TUSC would have been the hands-down winner. For months our pink ‘rent control’ banner and signs have made a splash on street corners and at stations around the borough.
Our demand for rent control to bring down rocketing rents and investment in building affordable council housing got a huge echo. We heard horrifying stories of families living in cramped, damp conditions, facing eviction for raising maintenance problems and paying astronomical sums.
We spoke to thousands of people on our rent control flashmobs, knocking on doors in our target wards and leafleting at supermarkets and schools. With relatively small numbers of campaigners and finances compared to the mainstream parties, we managed to leaflet 6 wards fully and another 3 partially. On all of these activities it was clear that the majority in Waltham Forest are sick of the mainstream parties and were pleased to learn of an anti-cuts, working class alternative.
On our final canvass, the night before the election, someone said he would definitely vote for us because we are saying what Labour leader Ed Miliband should be saying but is too scared to.
On election day we campaigned in Walthamstow Market all day and at stations across the borough at commuter times. It was clear that the campaign had made a mark – people enthusiastically wished us good luck and told us that they had or would vote for us. One woman told us she was so pleased she had met us as she wasn’t sure what she was going to do at the ballot box or if she would even bother voting. This shows with bigger numbers, which we’re sure to build up before the next elections, we could have offered an alternative to even more people.

Campaigning on election day

The future
The very good results in Waltham Forest are part of a national picture where over 65,000 votes were won by 560 candidates and one TUSC councillor, Keith Morrell in Southampton, was reelected. Given the limitations we faced – in particular a complete media blackout of the project – this is a roaring endorsement for TUSC’s clear anti-cuts stand.
We’re already looking ahead to the general elections and beyond. In Waltham Forest we will have monthly TUSC committee meetings, open to anyone who wants to help build TUSC in the area. We will continue our campaign for rent control in the borough – initially by collecting the 4,000 signatures needed to force a debate on the issue in the council chamber.
These elections were just the start.

Waltham Forest TUSC signs Save Lea Marshes’ pledge

We have committed to a call by Save Lea Marshes’ for candidates to safeguard the marshes if elected. This is the statement:

“IF ELECTED WE PLEDGE TO PROTECT GREEN SPACES IN WALTHAM FOREST. WE WILL WORK TO PROMOTE BIODIVERSITY, TO ERADICATE THE USE OF PESTICIDES WITHIN THE BOROUGH AND ENSURE THAT ALL RESIDENTS HAVE ACCESS TO WILD GREEN SPACES CLOSE TO HOME.
Green spaces are not a luxury, affordable only during the good times, but fundamental to our individual and collective health and well being. Our environment IS our community.”

Why I’m standing: Tim Roedel, Grove Green

Hello, my name is Tim Roedel and I’m standing for TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) in Grove Green ward in the forthcoming council elections on May 22nd.
I am the Fire Brigades Union Waltham Forest Borough Secretary and I have worked at Leytonstone Fire Station for the last fourteen years.
I want to stand to help the campaign that is calling for an end to ALL cuts; we’ve had enough. We’ve particularly had enough in Waltham Forest.
In Waltham Forest we have lost 3 fire engines from the service due to cuts, one from my very own station. Nationally, we are expected to suffer a 30% cut in provision, this is unprecedented.
There have been 3,845 firefighter job cuts across the UK since 2011. This has had the effect of slowing down responses to 999 emergency calls and increasing the risk to communities.
Firefighters have seen three years of pension contribution increases and are facing a fourth. Government is proceeding with plans for an unworkable pension scheme for the future.
The floods last Christmas showed that it is not just fires that we deal with. There is more pressure on the service than ever, and fewer and fewer resources to perform the tasks that are needed. 70% of England’s fire and rescue services were involved in the floods, but there is still no clear duty for them to respond to floods (unlike in Scotland and Northern Ireland). Funding and resources are still not adequate for the threats faced by local communities.
Leytonstone Fire Station is due to be demolished and replaced with a new building next year using The Private Finance Initiative Model (PFI). This is where a private company builds the building and the Fire Service pays the building company back over many years. I hope that this does not turn out to be as disastrous for the fire service as it has been for the NHS. Huge cuts to Whipps Cross are being attributed to the calamitous PFI scheme down at Barts and The London. We wouldn’t want to be held to ransom by private building firms that could potentially mean stations have to close and firefighters lose their jobs; all to pay for a building that should have been built and financed in the public sector.
I am proud to be standing with other trade unionists and socialists campaigning against cuts, particularly those working in the local hospital Whipps Cross. I believe if elected I would oppose all cuts to local services, having been on the receiving end of them in the fire service. We need anti-cuts campaigners to be visible, vocal and oppositional wherever they can. The more we raise the need to tax the rich, renationalise the utilities and use the revenue on public services, the more chance we have of galvanising people against austerity.

Why we’re standing: High Street candidates

Nancy

Nancy Taaffe, sacked library worker:
“I have lived in Walthamstow for 30 years, I had my children in Whipps Cross and they both went to local schools. I worked in Waltham Forest Library service for 12 years, first at the big Central Library in the Market and then at Wood Street Library. I lost my job in January 2012 in phase 12 of the cuts.
The current High Street councillors, including cabinet members Clare Coghill and Liaquat Ali of the Labour Party, voted through these cuts. We now have 700 fewer jobs for our young people. Our youth services, which Clare Coghill is portfolio holder for, have been deemed some of the most cut in London – what a record!
Cynically the Labour council has spruced up the crossroads and pavements in this election year. But they have also already agreed another £40 million of cuts – they are not publicising this fact until they have your vote.
In TUSC we believe Clare Coghill and Liaquat Ali took the easy option, keeping their jobs and positions and believing that people like you would have no choice but to always vote them in. This time you have a choice.
We oppose the land-grab and speculation that is taking place in High Street ward. The properties being built are expensive boxes and will not solve the housing crisis. We also think that people who have small business that are linked to property development should not be councilors, in the interest of transparency and accountability.
The racist division of parties like Ukip is no solution. We stand for a united campaign to turn the tide. We want the rich to be taxed, the privatised industries to be brought back into public control and for the money to be spent on creating decent jobs and homes for all.

(Senan) Thanabalasingham Uthayasenan, Socialist Party activist:
“Having lived some years in High Street ward, I have sadly witnessed the deteriorating conditions in
this borough. Campaigning against cuts to jobs and services I have often joined protests at the Town Hall. One Labour councillor told me in no uncertain terms that not only would they not oppose the cuts – they were proposing them! But the council has a choice – they could refuse to wield the Tory axe but don’t. I stand long with other TUSC candidates to fight austerity.

Marvin Hay, local government worker:
“I work in housing for a council in a neighbouring borough so I know all about the housing crisis we’re facing in London. TUSC calls for rent controls to bring rents down and for a mass programme to build and renovate council houses.
Everyone should be able to afford a decent place to live – TUSC would make sure we can.

We’re off – final four weeks!

It’s confirmed – 33 no-cuts candidates are standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in Waltham Forest in May’s council elections – at least one candidate in every ward of the borough. It’s part of a national challenge where more than 500 candidates are standing. We have a really impressive list of workers, community activists and young people – all ready and willing to vote and fight against all cuts.
The work is well underway. Workers at Whipps Cross hospital are meeting twice a week to do activity in the two wards (Forest and Leytonstone) where 5 of their colleagues are standing – 1,000 leaflets have already been given out. Teacher Dan Gillman has given out 2,200 in Markhouse ward where he’s standing. Candidates in Higham Hill ward have given out 800. In High Street ward Socialist Party members will be canvassing three nights a week for the rest of the campaign.

Some of the local ward leaflets

And then there’s the general activity at transport hubs, Mosques, colleges and supermarkets. Our pink flashmob rallies for rent control, highlighting the issue of unaffordable housing, are getting known across the borough.

One of our rallies for rent control – by Whipps Cross roundabout

There are less than four weeks to go until the elections. Labour wants to think that people don’t have any choice but to vote for them – their canvassers have even told our supporters that no socialists are standing! But the truth is that people do have a choice, and have had enough of the three main parties who all essentially stand for the same thing.
If you agree then now is the time to get involved. Get in touch, come to our activity, tell your friends and on 22 May, vote for TUSC – a voice for the 99%.

Why I’m standing: Sarah Wrack, Valley

Sarah on the National Union of Students demonstration in 2012

I first moved to Waltham Forest in 2004, when I was 15. I didn’t spend much time here then – it was before I got involved in politics, all my friends were still in Tower Hamlets and as far as I was concerned, there was nothing to do here.
But when I came back from university in 2010, I started a job in Leytonstone and moved into a shared rented house just down the road. I was a member of the Socialist Party by then and so got to know lots of other activists who worked and lived in the borough.
At the end of 2010 I organised groups of college students from Leyton Sixth Form to protest as part of the student movement against the tuition fees rise and scrapping of EMA.
I helped set up the Waltham Forest Anti-Cuts Union and in 2011 we marched through the borough against the devastating cuts being made by the local Labour-led council, particularly to children’s and young people’s services.
In 2012 I took part in the campaign against the far-right, racist English Defence League who attempted to march in the borough twice. There was a fantastic response from the community and we stopped the EDL holding their rally in August and scared them off completely in September.
In 2013 I was involved in the campaign led by Whipps Cross hospital workers in defence of the hospital and trade union rights and against cuts and down-bandings, including a great demonstration through the borough, led by the nurses affected.
So in 2014 I’ve decided to stand as part of the Waltham Forest Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition list against all cuts. I’m standing because these fantastic campaigns might have successes or failures, but the bosses and politicians always have more attacks around the corner.
The issues aren’t separate – NHS cuts, council cuts, racism, the anger of young people – all a result of the capitalist system we live under that is run purely for the profit of the super-rich 1%. I’m fighting for a system democratically run by and for the 99% – one that can provide everyone with a decent home, education, job, healthcare and leisure time.
I’m standing because I want the 15 year olds in the borough today to feel engaged – to be involved in fighting to make the borough, and society generally, better for themselves and their futures. I don’t think any of the main parties are capable of offering that, but TUSC is.