100 signatures reached
To: Barking and Dagenham Council
Dagenham Fire Residents Need Secure Homes!
The fire on the morning of 26th August has left residents without homes, while the building remains too unsafe to enter. Despite this emergency situation, residents are facing ongoing housing insecurity due to the Council's practices.
Sign our petition calling on Barking and Dagenham Council to:
- Give clear written assurance to residents that they will provide suitable, affordable, secure housing for all residents made homeless by the Dagenham fire, for as long as they require it.
- Give commitments to residents that they will not be forced or pressured to move out of their local area.
- Stop the practice of forcing residents to leave their temporary housing every week, ensuring this is automatically renewed.
- Remove unnecessary barriers to housing, ensure clear communication across council departments to source long term accommodation which meets the needs of all residents.
Why is this important?
In the early hours of 26th of August, residents of the Spectrum Building of Freshwater Road, Dagenham awoke to a fire tearing through our building. Over 80 of us were forced to evacuate our homes and we are lucky to be alive.
Fire alarms failed to go off, leaving us risking our own safety to wake up our neighbours. Fire escape routes were padlocked shut and the removal of cladding from the outside of our building had been delayed potentially worsening the disaster. The building is too unsafe for us to return to our homes or collect our belongings.
Losing your home and all your belongings overnight is everyone's worst nightmare. But since losing our homes to the fire, we are living in constant insecurity.
Join our call to Barking and Dagenham Council to demand security for tenants of the Spectrum Building
Despite being temporarily housed in hotels and hostels, every week we are being made to pack up any belongings we have, check out of our rooms and wait to find out where we will be sleeping that night.
Alongside this, we are facing the threat of being forced into unaffordable accommodation outside of London, costing thousands of pounds we don't have, miles away from our work, schools, families and communities - at a time when we need them most.
This is a kick in the teeth after all we have been through. It means that at the start of every week we will not know where we will be sleeping that night. To those of us with young children and babies, we have to uproot them again and again and face uncertainty about our futures. We are being forced to miss work risking our employment and being put under ongoing stress and anxiety.
We are families, workers, residents and members of the community and we have lost everything. We need a safe and secure place to call home while we get back on our feet.
Please help us by calling on Dagenham Council to stop these cruel and unnecessary practices and to make sure Spectrum Fire Residents have a safe place to call home.
Sign our petition now.
Sign our petition now.
