Merlin Betts
This article is part of a series. Find the previous article here, and overview here.
The only other power here apart from rules-regulated government and profit-governed business is community. Yep, people getting things done through their own through goodwill, effective organisation and small-scale fundraising. We have a lot of growing community-led solutions to the town’s housing problems but they’re almost all in the early stages of development, and would need radical co-operation with the other powers in town to quickly succeed on a large scale.
The council is fascinated by this idea of listening to and co-operating with community groups – and put Cllr Simon Willis in charge of Housing and Community Development to say so. Back in August 2023, Paul Barnett even asked, politely, that residents give up their spare rooms and gardens to help with the temporary accommodation problem. How optimistic he was! At the end of December the Hastings Independents who’ve split from Labour (including Cllr Willis himself) have made some excellent rumblings about the importance of Hastings beyond party politics, about community, about enabling rather than directing. These are all good signs, believe it or not, and necessary responses to an ever-dwindling pot of government money to call from.
The town’s leading business interests on the other hand are a bit late to the party because, put bluntly, there’s no profit in it. There is money in it, there is massive improvement to the daily lives of town residents, but it’s not really something you can asset-manage into private equity if you know what I mean. Our only hope for that sector (‘business’) is to mobilise charities and smaller enterprises which’ll find it much easier to integrate with community projects because, generally, the sterling signs in their irises aren’t as large and pendulous. Some of them are just trying to get by, and of course that has to be respected.
At least, that’s what I had in my head until a few days ago. Then I suddenly remembered that a CIC (a community interest company) is actually part of the business sector rather than the community (often called the ‘voluntary’) sector. So, really, there’s a whole ream of growing business interests in town that are devoting their budgets to social goals and restricting how much profit goes to shareholders. And this is great news: community’s partially represented both in government and in the private sector.
But I can hear you asking now, “Who is this ‘community’ you’re talking about? Isn’t this just more pseudo-communist weirdness from the anti-semitic left?” Well, no. Community is that small but growing branch of society that runs itself. It’s not a business, it’s not a form of government. You could call it ‘voluntary’ because it is, and actually ‘voluntary’ might not be a bad summary. People doing what they want because they think it’s good. The key unit of community organisation, I’d suggest, rather than a charity or a CIC, is a co-operative or a community land trust. We have plenty of these in Hastings too.
Before the new year there was a meeting at the Observer Building to set up the Hastings Housing Alliance. A lot of community groups and interest organisations attended, and their potential future sounds promising. There’s a little too much going on there to simply summarise, so here’s the article I wrote on it [link soon to be added – it’s another big one, and I’m just running the final edits].
A bit like the council budget, the Alliance is exactly what we need to be doing, but it’s happening somewhat tentatively. I think this is simply because we’re not supposed to be organising ourselves. The council isn’t supposed to get out of a section 114 and manage on its own. We’re not supposed to take property away from developers and put it in the hands of the people who actually live there. And historically, when we start doing what we’re not supposed to do, bad things happen. Bad, bad things. But, so far – no bad things on the horizon! So let’s get on with it I say, before someone with money and guns notices what we’re up to.
I promised a practical solution, and you might think I’ve not given one yet. A while ago I drafted an article for Hastings Rental Health in which they mentioned a fascinating co-op in East London called Phoenix. It was set up in the 80s to bring empty buildings back into use by acting as a go-between for tenants and landlords. Unlike the guardian schemes you see, it’s not exploitative. They look after both the tenants’ interests and the landlords’, while trying to negotiate and maintain decent terms for both sides. When things go wrong, the co-op takes responsibility and cleans it up, whoever’s made the mess.
Sounds like a cracking scheme, and just the kind of thing we might need for Hastings’ 3,000 empty homes, short of squatting them or compulsory purchase orders (which I’d personally much prefer, but you know… you get what you’re given sometimes).
Much as it’s frustrating with some of the evil, monolithic providers, we do have to make sure that landlords are as much a part of the solution here as tenants and the local authority. We have to make sure that they don’t feel threatened and that they give up their greed and privilege because they realise it’s a waste of time and resources (not all landlords are greedy but, again, the big greedy ones are very noticeable). That’s the only way change is going to happen. Community is about everyone consenting, everyone volunteering to be part of the same movement and treat everyone else in it as part of a family – except in this family everyone had a choice, and chose to be there.
Another promising notion in part five: Unitary power.