Residents meeting with Tory in situ

I wasn't going to go. I never post about it when I do because I can never remember the interesting things... like cash we have to spend in order to be given cash, though not cash to repair The Toilet (my word for the lifts if you remember...)

Today the meeting was about Regeneration Plans. Why should this interest me? Me and my boy are being evicted. Made the whole experience surreal though.

"This is your home," said the councillor, "Your community, you care what happens here, you want decent homes."

First off the crowd! Usually there's only half a dozen of us, including my son, sat around a table. The last two meetings have been about buying plants to make the Tower look pretty. Today's chat wouldn't be about that, I figured upon entering.

There were at least two dozen people, more. Rows of seats all taken and a row of people standing at the back. Yep, all tenants who are not only scared that their homes will be knocked down, in the name of 'regeneration', but to complain about their flats.

"The windows!" chorused quite a few. Metal, single glazed things that have never been replaced, despite the old man next to me having written complaint after complaint letter since 2001.

"Heating!" With draughts from the crappy windows coming through it hardly matters if the heating's on, but one mum, from a papier mache round the corner, was saying that she and her six year old had to sleep downstairs in the living room because upstairs was sub freezing - -2 degrees indoors when the snow fell down.

Much talk of the Decent Homes Standard and how to raise the cash for it; sell offs, rechannelling rental income ("I pay rent to live in a shit home") and regeneration. "Our windows!" they chorused again. (I've got cellophane stuffed down my windows, my ma did it years ago when she visited because the whistling wind through it was so loud we couldn't hear one another speak.)

The Tory councillor fielded all this with "I can't talk about anything before I was elected" and "This is the beginning of a consultation programme..." He couldn't tell us whether the block would be knocked down or not. Take it from me, he said, "Nothing will happen on this estate that you don't want to happen. We'll take the majority view."

Forgive me if I interpreted this as hot air whistling through my window. Not that I should care, it won't affect me...(though will that be the choice for the others though.... live with your crappy windows, your non existent heating, your faulty electricals or lose your home?)

He spoke about how the council want to take estates and squeeze value from them (hmm, I didn't catch how they might do that, I'm not sure he said). Sort out the problems within them. Problems, not of windows or heating, but of other problems that come from living on estates: "Health issues, unemployment, teenage pregnancies. Camden is one of the top four deprived wards in the country."

Fuck, and there's me wanting a council flat to live in with my boy and estates are all there is to bid on. Words fail me.

"Any questions?" asked Mr Grey. My hand shot up.

"Do you agree with sell offs to fund this decent homes work?" The answer was a diluted yes. A difficult choice, it's not many properties...blah blah blah.

"Do you agree with what these policies are doing to that little boy behind you?" He glanced behind him at my superstar drawing at a table (the only child there) and circumvented the answer, he was still on the decent homes thing.

"He is being evicted this year and the council want to put him in a hostel. Do you think that is a decent home for a child?"

I got quite excited as he said there was a policy now in place "not to keep families in hostel accommodation for more than....."

More than????????

"Two years."

RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH. Only I wanted to cry.

He said we would get housed. "When," I subconciously spat, "before you knock this block down or after?"

"You haven't been listening to a word I've said," he said.

"Yes I have." But then another tenant took that lead to rant against the razing to the ground of newly refurbished health centres and the like, of money spent literally being flushed down a drain. My head was feeling quite an awful pressure though and I could only hear snaps of this conversation.

A passionate crowd. In this sense it was good. They were angry they hadn't been invited to a consultation about their homes for "12 years!", "up until now!" The Tory councillor lives nearby where someone was shot yesterday. He's no stranger to the problems, he was saying.

We're being evicted we're being evicted we're being evicted. My son my sun my son. Thank you lady who took my lead.

I knew I hadn't approached it all very well, got a bit "passionate" myself, so it was with a difficult heart that I asked him if he could help us, afterwards, when he was giving people his card.

He said he would. Said he'd talk to the council, send me their response. "Everybody I've asked for help has done that." Told me to get my son's Head to email him. I said the Deputy had recently written a letter. He said he'd try and get us on the exceptions panel. "They've turned us away three times," I said.
"We'll see what response I get from the council and then I'll become an advocate for you."

Oh reader, forgive me if this no longer excites me, if I'm not filled with heart pounding hope.

Labour MP tried to help.
Libdem councillor said he would.
So did other Libdem people.
No joy, no joy, no joy.
Well you know, I'm still blogging about it after all.
Can a Tory make it happen?

On the cover of Private Eye, there's a picture of his Leader holding a baby. "I'll get us out of this mess" says Cameron. "You must think I was born yesterday," says the babe.

Has the Leader heard of my request to meet him? Did this councillor get wind?

Right now I am hoping this is the end, my beautiful friend, the end. (Yep, The Doors)

I did thank the councillor. Yep, even with a muddled motherboard, I didn't forget my manners.