EJ&H Housing and Health London Meeting

As part of our Economic Justice Secure Housing campaign, we are holding our first London Housing & Health meeting on Saturday 28 May at 10am at Ark Globe Academy, London SE1 6AF.

Register below!

We will be meeting with HASL (Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth) and their members, talking about the housing and health problems encountered by residents, and elaborating a plan for healthcare workers to support their ongoing campaigns in South London.

You don’t have to be a regular members of the EJ&H group or a health worker to get involved, everyone is welcome! If you’re unable to attend any of the meetings but keen to get involved or develop a local campaign, please get in touch with Jordi.

About the Secure Housing campaign

The Economic Justice & Health group is organising to improve policies for better access to secure and sustainable housing. This includes working alongside local groups to support local campaigns (including housing-first approaches), as well as demanding policy change on a national level for better support for social housing, community-owned housing stock and protections for renters.

You can read more in our booklet The Public Health Case for Secure Housing.

The housing system in the UK is broken. Currently, 1.6 million households are on social housing waiting lists and millions more are struggling to meet unaffordable rents in the private sector. In England, the number of people experiencing core homelessness reached just under 220,000 at the end of 2019.
Quality of housing is another serious concern for public health.

One in five dwellings in England fail to meet decent standards for living, with disregard for basic health and safety measures all too common. Housing is not equitably distributed in the UK: poorer households, ethnic minority groups, the elderly and adults with disabilities are all more likely to live in low-quality, unsafe, insecure housing.

Despite all of this, social and private rents are growing faster than the cost of living. Social housing stock is dwindling, yet there are around five times more empty homes in the country than households in need of housing.

Secure housing means housing that is accessible to all, meets good living standards, and where tenants are not forced to live under precarious conditions.

As part of the health community, we see and care for the symptoms of an unjust economic system. We are united in struggle with friends and colleagues within and beyond the NHS in organising to end housing-related health inequalities. We all play a crucial part in advocating for the systemic change needed to win high quality, secure and affordable housing for all.