Housing Crisis Hustings

Hustings last night in Peckham, organised by the Southwark Group of Tenants Organisations, with speakers from Labour, LibDems, Greens and us. The Tories were invited but apparently are boycotting all hustings. About 40 people present. The main theme was housing, a major problem in Southwark due to demand for housing near the Thames with easy and quick access to central London driving up land prices, so making it profitable even for the council to encourage up-market housing projects proposed by developers. This has given rise to criticism of "social cleansing". In fact the hustings was filmed by someone making a film on the subject.

Our candidate, Kevin Parkin, said that we had nothing against tenants association -- he himself was vice-president of his local one -- anymore than we were against trade unions; but they were only defensive organisations for workers under capitalism; the solution to problems workers faced could only be found within socialism; the housing problem, for instance, arose because under capitalism houses were built for profit.

Councillor Peter John, the Labour Leader of the Council, conceded at one point that councils could only tinker with the problem as long as they had to rely on profit-seeking businesses to build houses; to get (so-called) "affordable housing" (80 percent of the market rate, still unaffordable for most people in an area of rising land prices) they had to do deals with developers which allowed these to make a profit.

This is true. Having to provide social housing reduces their profits, so if pushed to provide too much the "developer" can simply walk away, resulting in no "affordable housing". Peter John said this could only be rectified by national legislation to allow councils to build houses themselves. This of course (though he didn't say so) would still involve paying money to capitalists as the money to finance this would have to be borrowed from the money market.

The LibDem representative, Tim McNally, billed as "a former Councillor and Cabinet Member" was completely demagogic, promising to stand up to the developers and accusing Councillor John of being in bed with them, as if the LibDem/Tory coalition, of which he was a Cabinet Member, that had run the council from 2006 to 2010 hadn't had to behave in the same way. For instance, here is what a what a Tory former Cabinet Member of that coalition, the one in charge of Housing, Kim Humphries (now, incidentally, himself a Developer -- the revolving door operates at local council level too),said at a hustings for the 2008 Greater London Assembly election in April 2008:

Councillor Humphries was surprisingly honest. He was against having a quota of "affordable housing" in all new housing developments as this could sabotage such schemes. In other words, would reduce the profits of the developers who would take their money and invest it somewhere else where they could make a bigger profit.

The Green representative wanted people to be nice to each other.

The SWP were selling "Socialist Worker" outside the venue.

Activity yesterday

Five, including a comrade visiting from New Zealand, were out in King Street, Hammersmith (just over the bridge from Barnes ward of Richmond where we are standing) running a street stall for a couple of hours. Nearby was a rival stall from the European Movement handing out anti-Brexit leaflets calling for another referendum.

As our election leaflets won't be arriving until Monday we handed out the one "The problem is not the Tories ... it's capitalism" which also has a tear-off freepost reply coupon. Must have given out 200-300. Two responses that day to Head Office by phone and email (well above par for the course). Also sold a couple of Socialist Standards and a couple of pamphlets. We don't know how many of the passers-by were from Barnes (not that it really matters), but we met a Green Party candidate standing in Chelsea & Kensington.

Meanwhile in Peckham on the other side of London our candidate in Borough & Bankside ward of Southwark, Kevin Parkin, told a hustings on planning and regeneration there that the problem of houses left empty to speculate on rising prices existed in his area of the borough too and was a consequence of housing, like everything else under capitalism, being produced for profit not for use.

A letter on housing

Letter from our candidate in South West published as the main one in this week's issue of the Surrey Comet under their headline of "Proof that capitalist system is flawed":

Green Party mayor candidate Sian Berry has a point (Surrey Comet, April 1) when she says that the present model for providing so-called affordable housing, as housing at a rent or price below the going rate, isn't working as it is based on signing "big deals with developers".

These deals have to allow the property developers to make a profit but the more below-market-rate housing the mayor requires them to provide in any project the less their profit. So there are limits as to how far they can be pushed.

If they aren't allow to make enough profit they will just walk away.

Not enough profit, no production. That's the way the capitalist system works and why it should be replaced by a society based on common ownership and democratic control, which will allow production, including of houses, for use instead of for profit.

ADAM BUICK, Socialist Party candidate GLA South West constituency.

Another letter.

Another letter has been published today:

Dear Friend,

an election must be coming. Jeremy Corbyn has been appearing in print around the shop calling for rent controls as a means of curbing the housing crisis. Rent controls, though, have never worked, and never will. They are an attempt to fix the market, and market rates will out, with landlords either letting their stock go to wreck or withdrawing from the market to protect their profit rates.

The only solution to the housing crisis is to build enough homes for all; but the market is patently failing to do this, and never will. If there were enough homes for all, how could a landlord collect rent?

No one can help taking up space, or needing shelter, and no-one should have it denied them because of market whims. Just as no-one can help falling ill, and should not have health care denied them because of market whims. We need housing free at the point of use.

The only way we can get this is through the common ownership of the wealth of the world. Anything less will always see profit (and rents) put before people's need.

Bill Martin Socialist Party Parliamentary Candidate for Islington North.

In the Islington Gazette no online letters page, but there is an e-edition here.

The Houses of Wandsworth

Just to shed a little light on what m'colleague was saying yesterday, here is a little chart from Wandsworth council.
Estimated households at 31/03/11:

Owns outright:	23,288
Owns with a mortgage or loan:	42,318
Shared ownership:	2,834,
Rented – Council:	17,295
Rented - HA/RSL:	9,820
Rented – Private:	27,407
Rented from other:	3,956
All Households:	126,917

As can be clearly seen, the vast majority of people in Wandsworth, don't own their own homes (and the way that press and local property sheets went on, you'd think everyone was an owner occupier). We can even include the mortgagees in the non-owners, many of whom are basically renting from the bank with a ruddy enormous deposit. Even if we include mortgagees and part-owners in the owners list, that is still only 54% of households. yet it is seen as aberrant to be a non-owner. It is considered shameful (or a privilege) to be one of the 17,000 council tenants (14% of the total).

Now, we're not proposing that the people who own their own homes be kicked out, what we want is the security of tenure that home owners enjoy to be extended to everyone. The vast majority of propertyless occupiers should be able to enjoy a home of their own. That is, there is a difference between a home and property, turning property into homes is where we're at.

Update

OK, a few more facts from the same source (I scrolled down a way, ok).

Wandsworth:	£385k / £50k	House Price Earning Ratio: 7.7
London:	£342k / £37k	House Price Earning Ratio: 9.2

So, average salaries are higher in Wandsworth, and thus houses are slightly more "affordable". Not affordable, though, for the 509 "unintentionally homeless" families in 2010/11.

Booting Ken

The big problem with Ken is, he has no excuse. He can rattle off the ills of capitalism till the cows come home; but all he has to offer is realpolitik of today.

Look at it this way, on housing, he says 50,000 affordable new homes over the next three years. Boris says 50,000 affordable new homes by 2011. the only difference is where they want to put them, with Ken's 50% quota imposing new build on Tory suburbs. Obviously, things like that do matter; but questions like, "Is that all?" and "What do you mean by 'affordable' anyway? Affordable to whom? How?" do spring to mind.

For instance, he cites the figure that there are 60,000 households with over 90,000 children in them, in temporary accomodation. This is an appalling scandal, and just the tip of the iceburg. 2.7 %, he says, of the housing stock is empty, because private owners are keeping them so.

On this he says

Policy has to be sensible and related to the real world. Boris Johnson’s 1 per cent target for empty homes is completely unachievable in practice: it couldn’t be achieved without stopping the private sale market from functioning.

Vile Trot that Ken is, he's protecting the housing market.

Indeed, his accomodation with the market is his hallmark. I've heard him discussing that jobs in industry just aren't coming back, and so we have to live with a nservice economy based London.

The bottom line is, his strategy is fatally flawed, he admits time and again that the power doesn't lie with him, and that he is doing little things here and there (some of which I'll discuss in coming posts) here and now.

We think that isn't enough, and the urgency of the situation is such that we need to mobilise to fundamentally change the system of society, and remove the burden of responsibility from people like Ken to ourselves.

Finally, Ken's constant reference to "Ordinary Londoners" would make Danny, our candidate, spit. Doubtless he'll tell you all about that himself soon.

Booting Boris

An anonymous commentator says of the last post:

Sorry I must disagree. You're clearly well out of your depth.

Boris has come up with a range of policy proposals - I advise you to look at his policies on www.backboris.com/policy.

Manifesto's galore (just a small one for you, Ken's Housing Manifesto was 11 pages long, Paddick's 1 page long...Boris' 38 pages). He's the only candidate with new ideas and the only one capable of leading this city at a time where corruption in City Hall is rife.

Now, I did actually check out Boris' policy pages before posting (the clue to that, anonymous, was that I linked to his webpage), and all I saw on housing was a vague commitment to work in partnership with councils to raise more affordable homes (note his objection to a quota, what that means is Tory suburban strongholds not wanting to develop affordable housing on their patch, which is what the current situation does). Likewise his promise to protect "historic views".

I've now looked in vain for his epic housing manifesto online at his site, and can't find it, after a good deal of searching. Now, maybe I'm a eejit, or maybe he's just not being very forthright about putting his policies forward.

But, lets look at what specifics I could find:

Release GLA-owned land and £130 million from the Regional Housing Pot to launch a new 'FirstSteps Housing Scheme', which will be open to first-time buyers frozen out of Government schemes

Work with the boroughs to build 50,000 more affordable homes by 2011

Invest £60 million from the Regional Housing Pot to start renovating the capital's 84,205 empty properties to help low-income Londoners off waiting
lists

Incentivise the boroughs to release dormant housing to those stuck in bed and breakfast accommodation, by returning the Mayor's precept to them

These are all driven by free market privatising dogma - as if lowering the precept (tax cuts! tax cuts! screameth the Dalek) is not itself going to be used by boroughs (esp. Liberal and Tory boroughs) to cut their own taxes (tax cuts! tax cuts! screameth the Dalek), even if strings are attached, money is fungible, and the boroughs would just reallocate the budgets elsewhere. Likewise, "releasing GLA land" is just more state shrinking.

As for the pittances outlined above, that renovation scheme amounts to about £700 per property, might do for a lick of paint, I suppose.

Like I said, Johnson is going to actively and as a matter of principle do nothing but channel the interests of the wealthy. The rest is bluster, blather and distraction from the reality of an exploited working class whose needs and interests always come in second place to the interests of profit and capital. A beautiful home is worthless if you can't afford to buy it.

Tired
Old
Tory
Ideas