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TENANT BITES THE DUST AND THE NEW DEAL BANDWAGON ROLES ON!

Mike Lane | 01.05.2004 09:14 | Liverpool

Take a look at this email, which was sent to me yesterday by a New Deal resident. Bellow the email is a short storey which will give you some idea about the madness that is happening in my community:

Dear Mike,

I and my family we evicted from our home in Needham Road, Kensington, in November 2003 because Housing Benefit was not paid to our landlord for approximately 12 months.

The house we moved into in the same road (Private Landlord again), was sold in an auction just after we moved in, the new owners want us out so that they can put in students so as to get more money.

I was told by Liverpool Council Housing Advice Service that I would have to APPLY TO BECOME HOMELESS? And then wait to see if my application is successful, I was also told to contact Housing Associations, C7 being the local one. Michael Bowles (C7) informed me that HOMELESSNESS IS NOT A PRIORITY and their list is closed.

Other Housing Associations have told me that because of the size of my family (there are 6, myself, wife and 4 sons), that we need a four/five bedroom house and because they don’t have any we could not go on their waiting lists.

It is now 16 days since I applied to become homeless and I am still waiting to hear what the decision is, we have to be out of the property by the 19/05/04 before we end up with landlord (MGM Estates, Chester) going to court and landing us with the court costs, solicitors fees, etc.

Rgds

This guy and his wife and kids are going to be thrown out onto the street when £62m is available within his community. And the city council is responsible for his plight. Four days ago the Liverpool Echo told him that they would send a photographer out to take pictures of his family and that they would do a storey. They gave him a time and day, but mysteriously they did not come. Maybe they will eventually come who knows? One thing is certain though, this guy only has 4 weeks to go and he will be dragged out of his house by ruthless on the increase bailiffs. Who’s going to help him then? Can anyone out there help us help this guy?

Take a look at the storey below which is just a snapshot of what is going on in the New Deal community today:

EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL FOR THE NEW DEAL ADMINISTRATORS!

Well, all 36 staff and the 30 or so community cronies at the £62m Liverpool Kensington New Deal for Communities office on Wavertree Road are having a great time. According to the spin doctored “New Deal News” (a sickly full of smiling faces and sunshine events spin doctored once a month glossy mag) the community cronies and the various New Deal outreach workers are organising all sorts of stupid events. Of course these middle class oriented events were suggested by the middle class entourage of community workers who have now entrenched themselves into well-paid jobs in the New Deal community. The £62m New Deal initiative is now nearly 4 years into its 10 year span and only 30 of the most conniving idiotic residents are now involved and there are 14,000 residents living in the New Deal area.

The idiotic 25 member New Deal board of resident homeowner moderates and conniving service providers have given the go ahead for hundreds of thousands of pounds of New Deal money to be given to middle class members of the Philomonic orchestra who will tour poor working class schools in the New Deal zone and play Mozart and Bach to the working class kids, many of whom will face a dreadful future of poverty and deprivation.

Demolitions and gentrification is on the cards, which will eventually result in hundreds if not thousands of poor working class tenants being thrown out of the New Deal community and reghettoised in other poor communities which are far away from the city centre renascence, you see Kensington is right next to the city centre. You can’t have riff raff tenants in an area, which is now being made ready for a massive middle class influx, can you? Some New Deal this has worked out to be, it should have been called New Deal for the middle classes.

Already the money grabbing house builder Lovells has been given public land (yes, land that belonged to the poor people who are now going to be hoarded out of the area) to build the first phase of 179 new houses, each costing somewhere in the region of £100,000. Only 45 of these houses (much smaller and tucked away in some far off corner) will be for rent and rumour has it that they will go to demolition homeowners who don’t want to buy another house after their old house is demolished. Already rumours are circulating around the New Deal community that the Registered Social Landlord Community 7 (C7 are in reality a subsidiary of the ruthless Riverside Housing Group who own over 22,000 properties in Merseyside alone) have already bought a house off demolition homeowner and given him one of their 58 new retirement apartments which where supposed to be for tenants only. The Liverpool Echo knows about all this stuff but refuses to write about it.

WHERE IS THE LEFT WING WHILE ALL THIS INJUSTICE IS GOING ON? YES YOU GUESSED RIGHT. THEY ARE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN AND MANY OF THEM, ESPECIALLY THE MIDDLE CLASS ONES WORK FIR THESE INITIATIVES AND FOR THE REGISTERED SOCIAL LANDLORDS. NO WONDER THEY DON’T WANT TO GET INVOLVED!

Mike Lane
- e-mail: mickjlane@btinternet.com
- Homepage: http://www.whistleblower.nstemp.com

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Mike, increasingly we working class activists share a common experience!

01.05.2004 16:32

It appears that NDCs (New Deal for Communities) elsewhere are oppressing working class people too, both in the community and also as paid workers too. Here's an email that I received via our party in April, Mike, you will find it very interesting. I've been trying to find out more from our party NEC, ie contact email address, etc.

You're doing a good job up there in Kensington and I hope you get the recognition you deserve for your long term commitment. (-:

To:  info@socialist-labour-party.org.uk
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 1:54 AM
Subject: Anti - Social Behaviour Orders/New Deal?????

I am a former employee of a Government New Deal Project who got dismissed after I complained. My 'New Deal' now means I have a dismissal on my previously unblemished work record,I have been alienated from a project which is supposed to benefit me because I objected to the police involvement and to this day I am ignored as have been a lot of people with thoughts and opinions different to New Labour and the stupidity of police involvement in a project supposed to BENEFIT people.

The police and local council issued six A.S.B.O.s to families on my estate whilst the local New Deal Projects B.O.D.s took a sudden interest in stock transfer to a housing association. I tryed to contact the project to see if I could secure some kind of help and support for these 'unfit' tenents, only to be ignored. I later found out the accountable body at the time of this request was the aforementioned housing association, silly me, obviously the more empty properties the easier their position to buy!

I am totally disillusioned with life in general. I can't get a job thats anywhere near the standard of employment i'm used to as I am always going to have to explain my dismissal and my reputation has been damaged beyond belief, although I understand this is a typical New Labour tactic.

Members of the community that have been badgered by policing and middle - class ideologies, whilst having fifty million quid waved in their faces, are now threatening to vote B.N.P.

I intend to do everything within my limited power to destroy and descredit New Labour, as it has done to me. My father, a union man and life - long labour supporter must be spinning in his grave.

Kai Andersen
mail e-mail: aokai@tiscali.co.uk
- Homepage: http://groups.msn.com/SocialistLabourPartyLiverpool


Injustice is the biggest issue....

05.05.2004 14:32

This account from Mike sounds horrendous, and like something out of Dickensian London or a 19th century railroad issue in America. But it is happening today!!!

It seems by all accounts, that people are being chased out of their own homes. This is not justice, it is in fact corrupt and evil beyond measure. Is this the Liverpool anyone really wants to live in? Are the people moving into such properties happy at the way former tenants have been treated?

Liverpool is now a neo-colony; and is being prepared so that those with huge amounts of money can make even huger amounts of money. Look at the Duke of Westminsters' involvement to see the truth of that. Any normal person can see the writing on the wall here; I KNOW how I would feel if my parents were being evicted in such a cavalier and unjust fashion. And the real issue is that law and justice is being subverted so that people with money can make even more money; all other considerations are irrelevant regarding the profit motive.

Perhaps someone who knows exactly what is going on can begin to compile a factual account, with dates and so on, so that someone somewhere can compile a report of just exactly what is going on.

Where are the concerned do-gooders when ordinary working class peoples lives are going to the wall? Where are the demo marchers and banner wavers now? Where are the angry radicals now? Perhaps working class people are not interesting enough? Whatever the case, I remain puzzled as to how this issue, and many other issues of injustices committed against working class people, are defiantly and blatantly ignored. Can anyone enlighten me? Some of the middle class members of this forum perhaps? I won't hold my breath!

Timbo


Time to Get together

05.05.2004 15:13

Why don't we get together and have a banner waving march or something. i myself have been in the stupid situation of facing eviction because of housing benefit not paying up and I know the stress it can cause to families when they try to take you to court for non payment and give you 10 days to pay a whole years rent. It has got to a point were it is just ridiculous and I would be happy to spend some time doing something to get the problem noticed. any ideas Timbo or anyone???

Julie


I wish I knew what to do...

07.05.2004 11:05

I am a wordsmith; I wouldn't know where to begin. Has anyone any ideas on how to tackle base injustice in Liverpool?

Timbo