Housing Justice

Dates

Dates

Friday, May 11, 2018 - 10:00 to Saturday, May 12, 2018 - 10:30

Location

Friends Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BT

 Free Event

Friday 11^th May: 10:00am  - 5:30pm (Panel discussions and Plenary)
Saturday 12^th May: 10:30am - 5pm (Local walking tour, films, housing activism)

Housing has become the main site of inequality, poverty and debt for many people in the UK. Since 2010, levels of household debt, evictions and homelessness have reached record levels with often harmful consequences. The tragic death of Grenfell Tower tenants reveals the extent to which housing policies and policy-makers prioritise profit over protection. Housing inequality looks set to worsen as the Conservative government plan to roll out more privatisation and deregulation which will erode the right to decent housing even further. In the face of these challenges, housing campaigns and activists are mobilising public support, protesting against the criminalisation of rough sleepers, providing alternative legal support for housing communities and encouraging participation in local-level politics. From organising local level ‘eviction watches’, to lobbying political parties and trade unions for solidarity and support, housing campaigns have never been so crucial to protecting the basic right to adequate housing.

This two-day event brings together housing campaigners, activists and researchers from across the UK to share and exchange experiences about how we can tackle the multiple challenges in housing and demand housing justice. This includes people from: housing campaigns, community land trusts, tenant unions, construction, trade unions, activists and artists.

Campaigns and speakers participating at this event include:

• Greater Manchester Housing Action (Carl Makin)
• Welsh Streets Campaigners and Artists Against Demolition, Liverpool (Nina Edge, Janet Brandon, Gary O’Donnell)
• Granby 4 Streets Community Land Trust, Liverpool (Ronnie Hughes)
• Glasgow Campaigners and Artists Against Demolition (Margaret Jaconnelli, Chris Leslie)
• Homeless Activism Manchester (Chris Blaine)
• Homeless Activism, Street Kitchen, London (Jon Glackin)
• Steve Speed, Salford Star
• Stuart Hodkinson, University of Leeds
• Steve Tombs, Open University
• Construction Safety Campaign (Tony O’Brien)
• Grenfell (David Collins, Pilgrim Tucker)
• Reclaim Holloway (Maureen Mansfield, Mandy Ogunmokun)
• Living Rent, Scotland (Neil Gray, Emma Saunders)
• These Walls Must Fall
• South Yorkshire Migration Asylum Group (SYMAAG – John Grayson, Violet Dickenson)
• Psychologists for Social Change (Helen McGauley)
• Fuel Poverty Action (Ruth London)
• Films:
  • Failed by the State (Q&A with film makers Daniel Renwick and Ish)
  • Behind the Rent Strikes (audience discussion and participation)
• Walking Tour:
  • Granby 4 Streets, Liverpool
  • The Welsh Streets, Liverpool

Organised by HERC, Open University and University of Liverpool
Contact: victoria.cooper1@open.ac.uk and Kirsteen.paton@liverpool.ac.uk