Tuesday 10 June 2014 – hear the Focus E15 mothers talk about their fight for social housing and see films from their campaign.
They’ll also be at The Spark in June and marching on Saturday 5 July for decent housing for all.
Decent housing is something you get if you’re rich, but must fight for if you’re not. As readers of this site will know, the young mothers of Newham’s Focus E15 temporary accommodation hostel have been battling Newham Council and the East Thames Housing Association for housing in Newham borough (links to stories on this battle below). Some of the woman have been placed in flats in the private sector – but only for a year and that year is almost half-gone for some.
The FE15 mums will speak about the FocusE15 campaign and show short films from this year’s housing office occupations and confrontations with Newham mayor Robin Wales. They’ll talk about the pressure they managed to apply to Wales and how they managed to stop the council from sending them out of London to live.
Here are a few of the films I took this year to be going on with:
Robin Wales racing out of a council meeting and away from the young mums (Wales has certainly got a turn of speed when he needs it. Look at him go):
The women occupying the council’s housing offices to demand decent social housing for all:
List of articles on Focus E15:
Open Democracy article: Why is middle class feminism so disinterested in women hit by austerity? (interviews with the Focus E15 mothers on their campaign to date)
Newham council runs out of meeting to avoid Focus E15 mothers’ protest
Focus E15 mothers take their petition for social housing to Boris at City Hall
Focus E15 mothers’ battle for social housing: an update
Young mothers occupy Newham council housing offices to demand social housing
Rubbish, mice and mould – good enough for young mums without money
Put this on a banknote: young mothers without money abandoned by the political class