Tenants Rights and Housing Wrongs

The security of tenure of all social housing tenants may be under threat from the next government, Michael Gelling, chair of the national tenants organisation TAROE told residents in Leeds.

A Leeds Tenants Federation conference on Saturday 30 January 2010 at the Thackray Museum, heard how a shortage of homes is already leading to renewed calls for social housing to be means tested and for tenants' income to be reviewed annually.

These attacks on the rights of tenants in the secure and assured tenancy must be defended by the tenants movement as the Chair of Leeds Tenants Federation, Linda McNeil made clear in her speech (see link to the right).

The conference also heard about the lack of rights experienced by gypsies and travellers on council sites in Leeds.These are the forgotten council tenants - in Leeds forced to pay £110 a week for a caravan hook-up, where they are tied into exhorbitant heating contracts and find themselves blacklisted by doctors. Why is discrimination over gypsies and travellers still tolerated, the Leeds-based support group, Gypsy & Travellers Exchange asked at the conference (see article on the right).

In the afternoon workshops discussed the Tenant Services Authority's new regulatory framework, which includes an injunction on housing associations and ALMOs to agree local standards with their tenants, while the other focused on the Right to Manage and progress with developing new tenant management organisations in Leeds.