Thanks to a militant campaign of protests and demonstrations, the residents of the New Era estate have won a temporary victory and will keep their homes for the coming year ahead. But the long term housing crisis in Britain has not been solved – and indeed, cannot be solved under capitalism. A socialist programme for housing is desperately needed.
Recent events at the New Era estate present a stark indication of the greed of the ruling class, ever committed to increasing their profits, but never sparing a thought for the mounting human cost. Ninety-two families were threatened with eviction from the estate, a social housing project set up in the 1930s with a commitment to providing affordable homes for local workers. But thanks to a militant campaign of protests and demonstrations, the residents of the New Era estate have won a temporary victory and will keep their homes for the coming year ahead.
Threat of eviction
The evictions were to be carried out by US property developers Westbrook Partners, who had recently bought the estate and intended to renovate the flats and increase rents to market value. At £2400 per month, this meant triple what the tenants were currently paying. The residents recently won an enormous victory, securing their homes at the very least until after next Christmas, when they had previously been under the threat of eviction potentially by the end of last December.
According to Pauline, a tenant of 15 years, when the estate was initially sold the residents were told that no rent increases would follow. Soon after, rents were increased by 10%, followed shortly by the news that the rents would be raised to market value, and that they would be given a year to “make alternative arrangements, if this is what they want to do”.
This implied that each tenant was simply another consumer, happily choosing whether he or she will stay in the homes that families have lived in for generations. In reality, they are part of the vast majority in society who cannot afford such costs and who would be forced out by such rent increases.
This pretence was soon given up, and Westbrook Partners openly said they would be issuing eviction notices and clearing the estate for refurbishment by June 2015. Most of the tenants had a lease with a two week break-clause, meaning they could be made homeless with two weeks’ notice at any time.
The crisis of housing
The plight of the residents of the New Era Estate is part of a wider housing crisis, with a trend of gentrification, not only in London, but also in various other parts of the world. It means that families who have lived in an area for generations are being forced to leave their homes, often with no option but to be sent to hostels and B&Bs all over the country, severed from their communities, schools and jobs. Landlords allow properties to become so run down that they are unfit to live in and will require expensive refurbishments, then announce that it is not financially viable to refurbish homes for the cost of existing rents and that they will have to raise them to market value.
This was exactly the case with the New Era estate, where Edward Benyon – who managed the estate until November and was spearheading the changes – said that the flats were suffering “numerous deficiencies” which would require “substantial investment” to mend. He is quoted in the Hackney Citizen to have said, “As a landlord, to run this estate as a growing concern requires an income equal to market rates of rent”. This is despite the fact that the estate’s previous owners, LBS Holdings, were making profits of £754,098 per annum before any changes, and rents have since been raised by 10%. A similar situation is occurring in Chelsea, at the Cremorne estate.
Westbrook Partners have come under fire in Brooklyn, New York, where the situation vis-à-vis gentrification mirrors Hackney. The company, who have been very active in buying up and developing real estate in the area, were recently forced to pay over $1,000,000 in rent rebates for illegal fees and overcharging. The Guardian reveals that, “[This] followed residents’ complaints about conditions at the blocks and allegations that the owners’ management company, Colonial Management, blocked tenants and housing activists from organising and used intimidation tactics to break up peaceful meetings.”
Militancy pays
The tenants of the New Era estate fought fiercely to save their homes, and have won a huge victory. Through numerous female-led marches and protests, a social media campaign, and an almost 300,000 strong petition, the tenants have attracted a great deal of media attention. Celebrities such as Russell Brand have been involved in the campaign, helping to raise the profile of the struggle. Under the slogans ‘Social Housing Not Social Cleansing’ and ‘New Era Should Not Become the End of an Era’, the tenants successfully drove out their initial opponent, Edward Benyon – brother of Britain’s richest MP, Richard Benyon. They gathered the support of local Labour MPs and Hackney mayor, Jules Pipe, and secured statements condemning Westbrook Partners from Boris Johnson and Mayor of New York, Bill De Blasio. Finally, on 19th January 2014, Westbrook announced they were selling the estate to charity The Dolphin Square Foundation, who claim to be committed to providing affordable housing to low and middle income families.
The ousting of Edward Benyon wasseen to be a huge success for the campaign, and came as a direct result of the protesting and public uproar in response to the appalling treatment of the residents. A statement on the Benyon Estate website said: “New Era residents have made it clear that they do not welcome our involvement in the future of the estate. They made it clear that they wanted us to pull out, and this is what we have reluctantly decided to do.” The Benyon family have been major landlords in Hackney since 1822 and own a 20,000 acre estate worth £125,000,000. They make their lack of concern for the basic human right of housing blatantly clear. It appears that the most likely reason they pulled out is to protect the position of Tory MP Richard Benyon, who cannot be seen to appear too undemocratic, rather than out of any sense of concern for the community they came so close to destroying.
Whatever the reason for the Benyons’ reasons for withdrawal, one lesson is clear from the inspiring struggle of the New Era residents’ campaign: militancy pays. The only way to win any concessions and fight attacks on living conditions is through organisation and militant struggle.
Under the weight of public pressure, Boris Johnson was compelled to ask his deputy mayor for housing to talk to Westbrook, “in an effort to try to find a favourable solution that would allow the tenants to stay in their own homes.” A spokesman for Johnson said, “The mayor supports the tenants’ desire to stay if at all possible and he would urge the Labour council and the local Labour MP, Meg Hillier, to do all they can to broker an agreement between the tenants of the New Era housing estate and Westbrook Partners that will allow that to happen.” This of course was not followed by even a mention of the need to reform tenants’ rights laws in favour of the countless others who will find themselves in an identical situation. In an interview with Russell Brand, Mayor of New York, Bill De Blasio appeared to condemn Westbrook, saying, “Sometimes it is fair to say there is a limit to the amount of profit you should make, because you shouldn’t want to dislocate people from their lives.”
Property rights vs social needs
The residents of the New Era estate were calling on Westbrook to sell the property to a social housing provider so that they could stay in their homes, as well as for the housing crisis to be addressed and for more social housing to be built. Even if these tenants have won, the London housing crisis and the effects of gentrification will continue for countless others. Under capitalism, property rights trump society’s needs for housing. There are countless empty mansions in London that serve no role other than as investment vehicles for the rich; and yet these continue to lie empty, despite the desperate need for housing in London.
For this reason, local politicians have little real power in this situation. Again, it is the supposedly sacred right of private property that overrules all other concerns. The tenants’ appeal to Boris Johnson at best forced him to ask Westbrook to change their minds; even if he had wanted to help them (which is highly unlikely, given Tory links to big business and friends in the City), he has no formal power over the estate as it is private housing in private hands.
No solution under capitalism
Labour has weakly danced around the issue of social housing and offered nothing concrete. In January of this year, shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds said, “We want to see an investment programme in social housing… I want to see a council house-building programme because there is a very big shortage of council homes.” The following day, it was reported in the Guardian that,“It is understood Reynolds was not committing Labour to an expensive new programme of council house-building, but was instead highlighting the issue’s importance and saying that a new programme should be a priority if the public finances permit.” During Ken Livingstone’s tenure as Mayor of London, he promised to provide 35 – 50% affordable housing on new developments, but in reality, less than 20% of homes were built at prices the majority could afford.
Dianne Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, has recently endorsed plans for a 50% levy on rents above a local cap, proposing that money raised will go towards affordable housing. She has implied that this is only a suggestion, saying it will “start the debate,” but is in favour of some form of rent controls. Abbott goes on to stress that the levy would be positive for businesses, as they will benefit from workers being able to live closer to London. Similar “business friendly” proposals are at the heart of all the Labour leaders’ suggestions when it comes to solving the housing crisis – a crisis that affects ordinary working families, not for the rich and the big business owners who live on another planet entirely.
What is clear from Abbott’s statement is that, despite her anger, she remains committed to preserving capitalism. All her proposal amounts to is for capitalism without the sharp edges – but in reality such a thing does not exist. As long as the interests of the rich are defended, the interests of everyone else will suffer, and this is truer in an economic crisis than at any other time. So long as the housing question is left to market forces, capitalists will continue to exploit workers wherever the opportunity arises.
Today, the deep crisis of capitalism means that the capitalists are forced to claw back concessions made to the workers in the past period. The big landlords and property owners profit from extortionate rents, whilst millions rely on housing benefit just in order to maintain a roof over their head. The massive increase in rents on the New Era estate is a prime example of this.
There is no solution to the housing crisis under capitalism. Building more homes through public borrowing and spending, as Abbott suggests, is not an option, as the government already has sky-high debts that the capitalist demand be repaid through austerity. Taxing the rich, another of Abbott’s suggestions, cannot fund any programme of housing either, as this would lead to a ‘flight of capital’ and a massive decrease in investment by big business, resulting in fewer (rather than more) houses being built. In short, as long as those in charge accept the logic of capitalism, meaningful reforms – in this period of crisis – remain unaffordable, and the reformist policies of figures like Abbott remain utopian.
For a socialist solution to the housing crisis!
While the tenants at the New Era estate have won an inspiring victory, unfortunately they are not guaranteed long term housing security, nor are others protected from finding themselves in the same position.
If we are serious about finding a long-term solution for tenants such as those on the New Era estate, we must look beyond capitalism for answers. Affordable, good quality housing could be made available to all if we had genuine democratic control over land and housing, along with the banks and major construction companies. For example, there are over 700,000 properties sitting empty in the UK alone – often purchased solely for the purposes of speculation. We must expropriate these hundreds of thousands of homes and use them to house the homeless and the millions living in substandard, overcrowded homes.
This is only the start. We need a socialist programme for housing, involving the nationalisation of the construction industry, placing it within a rational plan of production under democratic workers’ control. In this way, a mass social housing project to build and refurbish thousands of homes would be possible. In short, we must make the argument for a democratically planned socialist economy, run by elected representatives of the working class – ordinary people like those facing eviction on the New Era estate. That way the question of housing could be dealt with on the basis of need and not private profit. This is how we will defend the homes of the many instead of the wallets of the few.
