Merlin Betts
Hastings Housing Alliance has been formed to start fixing our local housing crisis from the ground up. But let’s not forget the lesson to be learned here: who can we trust to look after our housing, guaranteeing fair prices and good maintenance? Ourselves! Pictured above: 4 December launch day at the Observer Building, pic via Sharon Rhodes of SAP.
You’re going to be hearing a lot about community from me. Best thing to do – start thinking of “community” the way you think about “business” and “government” or “state”. It’s a word that’s going to be turning up a lot, but that’s because it’s one of these mega categories of social organisation. Unlike the one where we’re taxed by business owners, or the one where we give over our money and security to a herd of inbred populists, this is the one where we organise things ourselves. The advantages? It’s directly democratic – it’s you and your neighbours – and everything you put into it, well, you can see where it comes out. No time and resources disappearing into the back pockets of bosses, or the melting pots of government agencies.
Having said that, there’s always a crossover between these three mega categories. Meeting points. And we need those if we’re all going to work together to live in and change this society for the better.
The Hastings Housing Alliance (HHA) is a new community-led meeting point for the big three. It started back in December, and while I attended the launch at the Observer Building, I’ll admit it’s taken me a while to write anything about it. Those attending the launch included CICs, homeless charities, co-ops, cohousing start-ups, rental health organisers, community land trusts and the local council (in the form of Chris Hancock). A really good collection of folk. I’ll put up a list with a few details on each at some point so you can get a sense of how far the network extends. Hastings Commons under Jess Steele and the Self Actualisation Project under Sharon Rhodes were the founders.
Their opening goal is to combat each source of the local housing crisis. In fact, the official minutes to the launch state that as the Alliance’s main objective: “community-led solutions to the local housing crisis”. In the meantime since launch day I’ve perused their draft constitution, because I like to think that an organisation’s core values – its constitution – actually says something about how it operates. Wasn’t the case with HIP, but there we go. I guess I refuse to learn my lesson.
And it strikes me that the defining purpose of HHA is to “represent the views of the people of Hastings and St Leonards in matters concerning housing.” Which might sound boring, but it’s good to know what’s underpinning an organisation’s activity, and apparently what’s underpinning this one is all of us. Don’t forget to take advantage of that – if you don’t engage you can’t realistically be represented.
Last year we reached some kind of critical mass where we had both a developing housing crisis and a number of community groups and charities (some very new) fighting it. The Housing Alliance seems to be a normal response to that – once you’ve got enough activists working on something, it only makes sense to try and group them together to serve a common goal.
But more specifically, what does the Alliance do?
Well, rather conveniently I went to the pub for the last third of their opening meeting – the bit where they discussed that. And I went to the pub for the first hour of the other regular meeting I attended. But with the power of minutes, friends and deduction, I’ve gleaned enough.
Right now, most of the allies are interested in land. Any scrap in town they can find. They want to build on it in cheap, sustainable, high-quality ways. Modular, eco, assemble-on-site homes seem to be more popular than a pricey development (which might also require co-operation with a monolithic landlord like Southern Housing). And while not every group is taking the council’s temporary accommodation problem as their focus, a lot of them are. Assembling 15 homes here, 30 homes there, would make a pretty big difference to the homeless population in town, and to the council’s finances. There are also plenty of people on the verge of needing temporary accommodation, or barely capable of paying rent, who also want an affordable place to live and a nice community to share it with. This is where housing co-ops and similar organisations can stop a worsening of the crisis before it starts.
Paying for their property acquisition is another big area of discussion – and I’ll give it a separate article to cover it properly. Link incoming as soon as I’ve written it (if you’re reading this months down the line and I’ve not updated it, feel free to drop a mardy comment).
Apart from the temporary and affordable accommodation issues, and solving them with land, there’s a lot of chat about communicating to Southern Housing, and reaching out to the incomers, the new people in town, many of whom have a new flat and a bit of money to burn.
Southern Housing is a viable target because they’re huge and careless, and need to be aware that they can’t sit back and fail to maintain their properties, or keep raking in money while ignoring environmental concerns and tenants’ needs. But they’d also be a suitable ally because they have land that they’re not using for housing, but which other people would use. It’ll be interesting to see how the Alliance approaches them – the current members represent both stances, aggression and co-operation, and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive (even if they often are).
One idea that could appeal to everyone is a Landlord’s Charter, which would be written up by a mixed panel of landlords, tenants and government officials – and if it had the support of the Greens and Hastings Independents, it might even be viable. I mean, who knows how many landlords would sign up, but it’d be some kind of statement at least. Statements like this might not seem too powerful, sure, but voicing essential values helps to create a culture where those values are normal. Right now, the normal culture is profit at any cost. It’ll take a lot of work to change that, so we should do everything we can, charters included.
As for the newcomers to town, well, that’s another question. The HHA launch meeting last year suggested that they get a “welcome pack” maybe distributed via the council newsletter or website. There’s a definite need to reach out and explain that – while Hastings might look beautiful and easy to the newbie, there’s a housing crisis and a lot of community conflict here, and they should want to be on the ethical side of that divide.
For now, the best way to reach out to new folks is the same as for everyone else – doorknocking, leafleting, public events, which is where another split in the Alliance started to show: do you go to normal people, or do you go to networkers, leaders, politicians? Again, this doesn’t have to be a split (in fact it shouldn’t be) but it can end up operating as one. Something to keep an eye on.
Keeping it people-powered
Jess Steele, as leader-apparent, is much more at home networking with bosses and acquiring grant pots. She likes influential types and MPs. She wants to do what she does best – which is, essentially, applying public and private money to community projects.
That’s great on the one hand, but don’t forget folks, the main objective here is “represent the views of the people of Hastings and St Leonards in matters concerning housing”. Sure, your representations don’t mean much if you don’t have any money, but they mean nothing if you fail to engage with the people you’re representing. And by the way, community activism remains a massively under-utilised resource. Basically because people are miserable and don’t believe they’re capable of anything, so don’t get involved. Mobilise people and their resources, and suddenly your grant funds pale in comparison.
I’m curious to see how this Alliance plays out. Heck I might join if they ever give some kind of indication that they want individual members of the public to join. There’s a line about it in the constitution, but not much other encouragement that I’ve seen so far. Still, it’s very early days, and it was put together pretty fast. Needs some time to settle into a rhythm perhaps, and whether that rhythm’s more primary or tertiary remains to be seen.
I like organisations like this, because I see Westminster giving up on us, I see that business has never been interested in anything but its own profits. Community self-organisation really looks like the only way forward. So why not? Let’s go forward.
If you want to contact the Alliance, probably best to go through Sharon Rhodes and the Self Actualisation Project: sharon@saphastings.com
