*** wins campaign to rehouse family facing threatened eviction!

REPORT BY: Kai Andersen

The *** and the newly formed Tenants Action Group put pressure on Community Seven, the new commercial private sector landlord for the Kensington area, to rehouse them at a hastily a meeting attended by nine tenants at the C7 office on Thursday 8th July. After over an hour and half of intensive negotiation chaired by myself an *** and housing activist along with Mike Lane campaigner for social justice in the Kensington area and editor of the Whistleblower news-sheet, members of the McKay family and other tenant supporters, C7 Chief Exec' Tom McGuire (delaying his holiday for a few hours)and Anna Bishop finally relented after constructing numerous obstacles to why they couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't rehouse the McKay family in the area. These included; "The council is responsible for housing the homeless", "Have you tried the other housing associations in the area", "We're got many more urgent cases", "The McKay family are just the tip of the iceberg", "We are a business". WE pointed out that the council has transferred much of it's remaining housing to the Community Seven landlord thus C7 have most of the former council housing in the area, in regard to the other housing associations we pointed out that through stock swaps C7 is acquiring the stock of other HAs and RSL in the area. We also said the McKay family are what is uppermost in our concerns at this meeting. We further added that we weren't concerned about their business worries or their financial situation, we were concerned that they carried out their duty as a so-called 'social' landlord in the Kensington community.

We had agreed the night beford that we would set out a list of demands, one that the family remain in the area which they wanted to, that they had a house suitable for their housing requirements that C7 were duty bound to rehouse them after making them an offer which they denied was an offer 'more of a proposal' and hastily withdrawing it thus demoraling an already demoralised family. They said "we don't want to set a prescendent" which was what we expected they would say at our meeting the night before, but we said they themselves had already set the prescedence and that the onus was upon them to find them somewhere before their landlord's threatened eviction took place. They were due to be evicted as Rackman-like landlord MGM in the Kensington area wants to make more profits by filling their houses with yet more students rather than a single family. We said we're return the following Wednesday to find out if the house they'd been offered as a 'proposal' was habitable and we'd bring the rest of the iceberg with us if neccesary.

On the following Monday, less than two working days, the family were offered a house, a neighbour informed *** me, that the house was indeed a four bedroom accommodation had been substantially improved and that informal information was passed onto the family the same evening. The next day they viewed the house and were happy to accept it, but couldn't sign up for it until the following Monday. The Tenants Action Group still had it's meeting on the Wednesday 1pm and all of us were informed of the good news by the McKay family in their kitchen and we collectively shouted "We've got a house", I rang the C7 office to inform them that we wouldn't be coming to the office in the afternoon, but due to a computerised telephone queuing system we couldn't get through to speak to anyone that afternoon when it is usually closed anyway.

The family were constantly concerned about whether the offer could be pulled from them at the last moment, though as I said if they pulled it we would move to the next stage of action and take more people into the office, we knew well the McKay family had been let down by Liverpool City Council, most of the councillors, including the leader of the city Mike Storey over the past seven months and also the previous twelve months by the council's non-payment of housing benefit leading them to being evicted from one home in Needham road to their current threatened home in the same road.

On Monday 19th July the McKay family signed for their new home, even though it was like the third degree from the sound of it, ie had to have birth certificates for all family members, bank statements, credit checks, N.I. numbers and other stuff I believe.

On Tuesday: Friends and family helped them move in to it, ie I drove the large removal van and although somewhat stressful and heavy work. What the *** and TAG have achieved is a victory for the working class in general and tenants in particular here in Liverpool. We hope that this example of collective working class action will provide a inspiration to other working class tenants and be a positive ripple as it has been to all the *** and TAG members involved and myself.

The is of course a far bigger story behind this victory, but the question is who will report or print it? The Echo weren't interested in interviewing the family a few months ago, after agreeing to send around their photographer on two occasions and then cancelling.

We think it's shameful that working class families face threats of eviction or even threats of heavies being sent in to make way for the student invasion in Liverpool. The *** and TAG will continue to stand alongside working class people who call for our help and work with and support them to ensure their demands are met.

Due to capitalist establishment/media and anarchist Indymedia censorship, we chose to use *** in place of SLP which is the Socialist Labour Party in our postings, to remind people that we don't get fair or equal access to the media as the mainstream or other pro-capitalist parties get, we can't even get 'negative' reporting or name checks.