{"id":1887,"date":"2014-10-15T16:30:32","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T15:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=1887"},"modified":"2014-10-15T16:30:32","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T15:30:32","slug":"social-housing-social-cleansing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=1887","title":{"rendered":"Social housing not social cleansing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today (October 15) as London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elite quaffed champagne and made property deals worth billions of pounds the people of London gathered outside to demand their city back.<\/p>\n

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Protesters from housing campaign groups across London joined forces to demand an end to the regeneration of their housing estates as property tycoons assembled at MIPIM UK the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest property trade show.<\/p>\n

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The trade show, at London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Olympia, brought global property development companies together with local authorities and other partners to close deals, some involving public land.<\/p>\n

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Speaking to social housing campaigners outside, UNITElive heard how developers are \u00e2\u20ac\u0098socially cleansing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 our city. Families are being evicted from their homes and councils are selling on the land for massive profits to developers for luxury flats.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been living in my flat in Brixton for 10 years,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Betty, a Unite community member told UNITElive. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bNow my council want to evict me and my two boys so they can turn our estate in to luxury apartments.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy whole support network is here. My son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s school is here. He has ADHD and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve fought for a year to get him the help he needs in his current school. If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m forced to move I will need to start from scratch. We will be forced in to temporary accommodation. Who knows how many more times we could be moved on too.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was among the guests, is aiding and abetting property developers in the capital to the detriment of those needing a home \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a whopping \u00c2\u014180,000 salary is needed to rent an \u00e2\u20ac\u0098affordable\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 two bedroom home in London.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSadly Betty isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t alone,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Grace Lally, a Unite community organiser in Lambeth. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bLike everywhere in London there are thousands of people on the waiting list for council housing and no sign of any council houses.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bDozens of families have been thrown out, they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford other property in the area. Their kids are in the local schools, they have jobs, and they have connections and are part of a community which is being broken up.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Earlier this month, Unite urged London Labour councillors to boycott MIPIM as it attracts developers, estate agents, landowners and multi-national investors who are directly profiting from the UK housing crisis.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite clear that you cannot just leave housing to the market in London. The rents are just going up and up. There needs to be council housing available to people.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe rate of pay and the benefits people are getting does not allow people to live in London with the current rents that are being charged,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Grace.<\/p>\n

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Unite is calling for a massive council house building programme and the regulation of landlords with the emphasis on rent controls which work in Germany and Sweden.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese landlords are just cashing in on peoples misery. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care about the quality of life these people have or the lack of quality,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Grace.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe only way people can have security is with council houses that they know they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be evicted from and a landlord with some kind of accountability and social responsibility.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt needs to be the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s number one priority.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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  Today (October 15) as London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elite quaffed champagne and made property deals worth billions of pounds the people of London gathered outside to demand their city back.   Protesters from housing campaign groups across London joined forces to demand an end to the regeneration of their housing estates as property tycoons assembled at MIPIM […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[131,134],"wps_subtitle":"Londoner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claim back their city","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1887\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}