500 signatures reached
To: Rokhsana Fiaz (Mayor of Newham), Darren Levy (Director of Housing) and Donna Morelli (Assistant Director of Housing)
PEACH members say: Make our homes safe and tenancies permanent. Keep our community together.
PEACH is a group of Custom House and Canning Town residents who stick together to win the change that we need in our community and homes.
We have been fighting for 10 years to keep our community together while living through the lengthy and disruptive estate regeneration in Custom House and Canning Town. Plans were initiated in 2002 and continue to linger, leaving us in deteriorating conditions, uprooted one by one.
We need your support to make our homes safe and our tenancies permanent. We believe that everyone deserves a safe and permanent home.
Why is this important?
Over the last decade, we have participated in hundreds of meetings, investing our time, energy, and money in the fight for our basic rights. We attempted to collaborate with Newham Council by developing our community plan and setting up a co-production Steering Group. We waged a determined battle to rid ourselves of MEARs, the outsourced landlord that charged high rents for living in disrepair. Although we successfully compelled Newham Council to transfer the management back to its own hands, our unsafe living conditions and uncertainty continues. Despite winning investments for our homes following a petition from over 90% of residents, our housing issues persist, as the root causes are often ignored and we are left in the uncertainty and insecurity of temporary tenancies.
Our physical and mental health has suffered from the stress of insecure tenancies, living in unsafe homes and the closure of community spaces and high streets. Many among us, including our children, have been left disabled or chronically ill due to these living conditions. Each morning brings the uncertainty of receiving a letter that could uproot us and place us in another temporary property outside the area. We face the threat of eviction if we refuse these offers and want to stay in our homes and community.
Given these exceptional circumstances, we are asking Rokhsana Fiaz (Mayor of Newham), Darren Levy (Director of Housing), and Donna Morelli (Assistant Director of Housing) to use their authority and exercise discretion. The urgency of our situation cannot wait any longer for the regeneration. We need them to facilitate the transfer of all our temporary council tenancies to permanent, secure council tenancies. We need your support to get them to listen.
Please show your solidarity by signing this petition and spreading the word. We all deserve a safe and permanent home.
#PermanentSafeHomesNow #KeepOurCommunityTogether
See full demands here: https://bit.ly/PEACH-demands
