Demands: We want Safe & Permanent Homes NOW. Secure, decent, truly affordable homes NOW in Custom House and Canning Town, regardless of how long we have been here, by the end of 2025 latest.
Permanent Homes NOW
- Stop moving us from temporary accommodation to temporary accommodation
- Allow us to bid on the housing register and give us back our lost bidding years
- Guarantee our priority and end reassessment based on the age of our children
- Transfer our temporary council tenancies into secure council tenancies now
- Keep our rent the same (Secure Council Rent levels, do not raise it to London Affordable Rent)
By ‘us’ we mean:
- All temporary council tenants who are currently living in the regeneration sites of Custom House or Canning Town
- All temporary council tenants who have been moved out of the regeneration sites within the last 5 years (since 2019) and want to return
Safe Homes NOW
- Make our homes safe from disrepair, collapse, damp and mould and fire
- Make our streets safe with lighting, bins, caretaking and maintenance
- Keep clear records of work being carried out and how much it costs and share it with us
- Commit to fixing the root causes, a good standard of repairs and simple escalation routes to report bad work
- Regular Council inspections and meetings with residents
- Adapt our homes to meet our accessibility needs
- No more bedroom sharing or overcrowding
By ‘us’ we mean:
- All temporary and secure council tenants who live in council owned properties within Custom House or Canning Town wards
#PermanentSafeHomesNow #SafeHomesNow #KeepOurCommunityTogether #WeStandWithPEACH
PEACH members say: Make our homes safe and tenancies permanent. Keep our community together.
PEACH is a group of Custom House and Canning Town residents who stick together to win the change that we need in our community and homes. We have been fighting for 10 years to keep our community together while living through the lengthy and disruptive estate regeneration in Custom House and Canning Town. Plans were initiated in 2002 and continue to linger, leaving us in deteriorating conditions, uprooted one by one. We need your support to make our homes safe and our tenancies permanent. We believe that everyone deserves a safe and permanent home.
Over the last decade, we have participated in hundreds of meetings, investing our time, energy, and money in the fight for our basic rights. We attempted to collaborate with Newham Council by developing our community plan and setting up a co-production Steering Group. We waged a determined battle to rid ourselves of MEARs, the outsourced landlord that charged high rents for living in disrepair. Although we successfully compelled Newham Council to transfer the management back to its own hands, our unsafe living conditions and uncertainty continues. Despite winning investments for our homes following a petition from over 90% of residents, our housing issues persist, as the root causes are often ignored and we are left in the uncertainty and insecurity of temporary tenancies.
Our physical and mental health has suffered from the stress of insecure tenancies, living in unsafe homes and the closure of community spaces and high streets. Many among us, including our children, have been left disabled or chronically ill due to these living conditions. Each morning brings the uncertainty of receiving a letter that could uproot us and place us in another temporary property outside the area. We face the threat of eviction if we refuse these offers and want to stay in our homes and community.
Given these exceptional circumstances, we are asking Rokhsana Fiaz (Mayor of Newham), Darren Levy (Director of Housing), and Donna Morelli (Assistant Director of Housing) to use their authority and exercise discretion. The urgency of our situation cannot wait any longer for the regeneration. We need them to facilitate the transfer of all our temporary council tenancies to permanent, secure council tenancies. We need your support to get them to listen.
Please show your solidarity by signing this petition and spreading the word. We all deserve a safe and permanent home.
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