The publicity surrounding a coroner’s findings in November 2022 that the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in Rochdale had been caused by the toxic black mould growing in his family’s housing association flat exposed the shocking conditions in which millions of the poorest renters are forced to live. But government promises of stricter regulation over damp and mould in the social housing rented sector will do little to address the growing issue of homes across Britain that are simply unfit for human habitation.
Government figures for 2020/2021 showed that just over two million homes in Britain suffered from at least one Category 1 hazard, including damp, structural or electrical problems. Millions of people, including children, people with long-term illnesses and disabilities and other vulnerable adults, are living in damp, cold homes infested with mould and vermin as well as other dangers that pose a significant risk to their health and even lives. Inhaling mould spores can cause allergic reactions, asthma, respiratory infections, wheezing and shortness of breath. Cold and damp can also increase the risk of heart disease, and have a significant impact on mental health. The NHS estimates that £1.4bn is spent annually on the immediate treatment of illnesses associated with living in cold or damp housing, rising to £18.4bn for what it calls the ‘wider societal costs’ of unsafe, cramped and damp accommodation.
The appalling conditions faced by increasing numbers of working class people are regularly covered by local newspapers and housing blogs, but rarely make headline news. In October 2022, the housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa made a short film for Channel 4’s Untold series, ‘Help! My home is disgusting’, following up tenants who had contacted him in desperation when their landlords – predominantly housing associations – repeatedly failed to act. What the film shows are scenes in London and Manchester that would not have been out of place in the squalid Victorian slums described by Friedrich Engels more than 150 years ago.* These include:
- Walls and ceilings covered in black mould and wet to the touch;
- sewage spilling out onto the bathroom floor every time the upstairs flat flushed the toilet, seeping into bedroom carpets;
- flats so damp for so long that floorboards had rotted and walls crumbled, in some cases bringing the ceiling crashing down;
- mushrooms growing in carpets;
- mice, rats and cockroaches scurrying across kitchen floors;
- flooding;
- leaks dripping through electrical fixtures;
- toilets and showers encrusted with thick green fungus that grew back however often it was scrubbed with bleach.
The stench in many of these homes was unbearable. Yet those forced to live in them say their complaints are fobbed off or ignored for years, with their landlords simply branding them trouble-makers. When one woman tells Kwajo, ‘I feel they just don’t care’, she is right. They don’t.
More than 60% of social housing stock in England and Wales is owned and managed by housing associations – 4.4 million homes. While these ‘private registered providers’ may trumpet their social purpose, the reality is that they are in fact quasi-private monopolies interested only in increasing their revenues and their vast stock holdings; social housing tenants are an irritating legacy, a nuisance and a drain on surpluses. Their focus is increasingly on for-profit housing, particularly the misleadingly-named ‘affordable’ option of Shared Ownership, a route to private ownership; the inevitable corollary is that last year new builds for social rent by housing associations dropped by nearly 1,000 units. Meanwhile, the ten biggest housing associations – each with more than 10,000 social sector homes across England – saw their annual surpluses (profits) continue to accrue; last year the three with the highest number of complaints against them – Clarion, L+Q and Peabody – made, respectively, £307m, £195m and £195m. These companies see ensuring a decent standard of living for their working class tenants as a waste of money. Their ethos is that expressed in 2016 by the Chief Executive Designate of Hyde Housing Elaine Bailey: ‘For too long, housing associations have picked up the bill for damage or repairs that we are not responsible for. The odd toilet seat fix here and a lightbulb replacement there adds up to millions of pounds of help’. Yet these slum landlords are more than happy to rake off rich pickings for themselves: last year, for example, Clarion’s Clare Miller netted a cool £363,746, L+Qs Fiona Fletcher-Smith £328,500, Peabody’s Brendan Sarsfield £285,600 and the outgoing David Cowans of Places for People £474,828.
The housing associations are part and parcel of the housing crisis, supporting the policies of Conservative and Labour governments alike by eradicating social housing stocks through sell-off, demolitions, failure to build or deliberately allowing homes to deteriorate beyond repair while increasingly supporting a ‘for profit’ model. Capitalism has no interest in housing the working class in decent, safe or affordable conditions. Government attempts to legislate away the problem are completely disingenuous, whether by demanding professional qualifications for those involved in the social housing sector, or promising – once again – to ‘strengthen’ tenants’ rights. The reams of legislation already in place to ostensibly protect tenants from unsafe housing have proved of little use even to those who can afford to mount a legal challenge. Nor will a change of government make any difference. For all Shadow Housing Minister Lisa Nandy promised the Labour Party conference in September 2022 that her mantra would be ‘council housing, council housing, council housing’, addressing the housing crisis does not even make it onto Keir Starmer’s five core pledges for a future Labour government. In any case, Labour local authority landlords have presided over some of the biggest sell-offs of council housing and many of them, including Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Lambeth and Southwark, are regularly cited as among the worst landlords for dealing with complaints about maintenance and repairs. As Engels pointed out, poor housing for the mass of the working class is a direct consequence of the capitalist system – and can only be resolved by its overthrow.
Cat Wiener
*The Condition of the Working Class in England, Friedrich Engels, 1845
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 293 April/May 2023
