London Housing and Health Meeting (online)

*Due to planned TfL strikes on the London Underground, this meeting will now take place online via Zoom*

Medact’s EJ Housing & 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, as well as demanding policy change on a national level for better support for social housing, community-owned housing stock and protections for renters.

Since our last meeting the group has continued with its local work in Harrow, with outreach and flyering sessions with local organisers and tenants as well as media work, and has supported the London Renters Union with delivery of events in Brent and other locations. Over the summer, a Housing and Health Research Group was also formed.

In this meeting, you will be hearing from the members involved in our work, get updates on our local organising work in North West London, and help us develop the next steps and identify potential campaigns in other boroughs.

We will also be joined by representatives from the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), who will be speaking about their Healthy Homes Campaign pushing for introduction of a Healthy Homes Bill.

You don’t have to be a regular member 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 you can contact Jordi: [email protected]

[Registration has now closed]

Background

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.  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.

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