I have decided to report to Indymedia how appalling housing association are and how they actively work to keep dissident tenants living in misery. These posting will give some authenticity to the fact that these housing association officers as well as acting as an oppressive force within poor working class communities are vindictive and heartless. I would go as far as to say that their behaviour is not too dissimilar to that of the fascist. Mention is given to Tony Megan of the Eldonian estate. I know that some people, especially people on the left, do not agree with what goes on the Eldonian estate and that’s fair enough.

It has been over six weeks since people unknown hijacked me and my car was petrol bombed outside my flat propably by the same people and sadly I am still in the same position. Even if I knew who these people were I would not go to the useless police because the police don’t give a shit about working class people and I’m no grass.

Riverside Housing have got me on their list as an Harassment Tenant, what a joke and Venture Housing have offered me two flats which are in areas ten times worse than where I am now living. But as an activist and chairman of a Tenants Action Group who campaigns against these oppressive heartless housing associations can I really expect anything else? There is no way I will capitulate and grovel to these housing association officers because as far as I am concerned they are oppressors within our working class communities.

Below is a letter I wrote to Riverside’s Community 7 harassment officer.

Hi C,

I trust you are not working too hard? Your colleague (who’s second name I don’t know) B rang me again today, but just like the first time he rang me the phone cut off only ten seconds into the conversation. Did he bother to ring me back? No he didn’t. Surely Bob must have known that if he was ringing a mobile that there is always a possibility that it may cut off, as mobiles often do.

What this sort of behaviour indicates to me is that officers at Community 7 don’t really care about tenant’s problems. All the contact structures that are in place at Riverside and their subsidiaries only serve to distance officers from tenants and as such are not conducive with good tenant relationships. Is it any wonder that tenants take off at housing officers?

Many of the antisocial tenants you are investigating are your own tenants or tenants belonging to Riverside’s growing empire of subsidiaries. If Riverside and C7 put simple structures into place to address the issue of antisocial tenants and “consulted properly” with their tenants and asked them what they think the structures should be there would be a large drop in tenant antisocial behaviour. But such is the paternal attitude of Registered Social Landlord staff I suppose it is impossible for tenants to even try to have dialogue with you concerning these issues. But we as emancipated empowered tenants must look at the possibility that RSL’s use antisocial tenants as a further tool to subjugate their existing tenants with and also as a tool to encourage people, especially homeowners, to leave an area which the RSL (ten years down the line) wants to demolish.

We as tenant activists are well aware of the fact that we have absolutely NO say in the crazy incompetent running of RSL’s. What RSL staff say is final, there is nothing the tenant can do. In effect the tenant has no voice. Why don’t you go and talk with Tony Megan at the Eldonian Estate and observe the simple structures they have put into place to address the issue of antisocial tenants? You will learn a thing or two. But I suppose Tony wont let anyone from Riverside near his estate such is his mistrust of them from his past experience with Riverside when Riverside had another name.

I have now given up on Riverside and Venture ever finding a suitable place for me to live. It would seem to me that the only way I am going to get out of my present predicament is to move into a private landlord property. But as you know the rents with private landlords are twice as expensive as with an RSL. As you probably know I am Chairman of a Tenants Action Group that we set up a couple of months ago. What I intend to do over the next couple of months is stay in this flat and keep out of the sight of the thugs who tried to mug me and who petrol bombed my car (thugs who in my belief are your tenants) carry on working in the community on a new film documentary about the appalling behaviour of RSL’s towards their tenants even if I am putting myself in danger. I will start leafleting the New Deal area next week with the Whistle Blower newsletter in which I will tell the whole New Deal community how Riverside Housing’s Community 7 know about my present predicament but point blankly refuses to move me out of the community and away from possible danger to my life. I don’t want to have to have to exercise my right to protest and freedom of speech, but what choice do tenants have, especially tenant activists who campaign against social injustice? The only thing open to activists is to shame RSL’s in to helping their tenants.

Oh, by the way, the only properties your call centre ever has on offer are totally unacceptable. I went to look at one yesterday (the call centre would not give me the house number but when I got there other kind obviously oppressed beleaguered Riverside tenants pointed the house out to me) and was I shocked at the state of it. What really shocked me the most was that Riverside just expects people to live in such dire and what can only be described as Dickensian conditions.

I have to keep ringing your call centre and asking about these awful properties, what option do I have? Being an activist who campaigns against the social injustice that is perpetrated against poor RSL tenants by senior RSL housing officers, officers who are quite capable of the most vindictive behaviour, I suppose I should expect nothing else.

In conclusion, the staffs that work at your call centre are starting to build up a friendly repartee with me and it is quite obvious that they feel sorry for the people who ring them. One of them told me that she felt like crying after she spoke with a tenant who was having problems. This poor tenant explained to the call centre operative how her RSL officer would not get back in touch with her and about the miserable conditions she was living in. It would seem that the dreadful behaviour of Riverside’s senior staff is not going unnoticed by their subordinate colleagues. But I suppose this fact like all the other criticisms of your organisation does not bother you in the least. I mean, lets face it, it is now quite apparent even to the most casual observer that RSL staff continually present themselves, especially to the local media, as the victims, when in reality it is their tenants who suffer the most.

Yours most regrettably