Post on 22-Dec-2015
Stronger Together on Welfare Reform
25 September 2013
Kim Gallagher & Linda Beel
Coast & Country Tenant Panel
Transforming tenant involvement
Time for change
What’s working
Clear roles and responsibility
• Leaders – The Board
• Shapers – The Tenant Panel
• Evaluators – The Scrutiny Panel
• Code of conduct
• Action Plan
• Terms of Reference
• Corporate Planning
• Company target setting
• Leadership Team meetings
Transformed tenant involvement
Tenants lead the way
Tenants Talking to Tenants
Me and My Home
Shaping Development
Working with Others
• Go on Boro!
• Community Learning Champions
• Workers Education Authority
• Union Learn
• Other housing providers
• Womens’ Centre
• NEP
Impact on North East
• Estimated £380m loss
• ‘Cumulative loss could be £940m in 14-15
C Beatty and S Fothergill, Hitting the poorest places hardest: the local and regional impact of welfare reform, CRESR, 2013
NE -Impact on disabled
• Estimated 70,000 affected by changes to ESA
• Loss of £175m
• Estimated 33,000 affected by change from DLA to PIP
• Loss of £128m
The media
Strivers
Skivers
Hard working tax payers
Welfare scroungers
Sanctions
Employment
Unemployed Nov 12 – Jan 13
•National figure 7.9%
•North East 10.1%
•Redcar & Cleveland 12.2%
Why we needed to act!
• Impact on Tenants
• Impact on landlord
So we
• Talked to our Chief Executive
Tenants Together
Together we can make a difference
The Campaign Launch
• 72 tenant representatives, from
• 25 housing providers, representing
• 195,000 tenants
The Petition
Stop Bedroom Tax!
Tenants Together
Cutting the housing benefit of social housing tenants with ‘spare’ bedrooms will hit the poor, the vulnerable and the disabled hardest
Coast & Country’s Tenant Panel is harnessing the voice and power of 100,000 social housing tenants to launch a mass protest to stop Bedroom Tax.
Join us in our campaign and help get our voice heard in Parliament.
Together we can make a difference!
Outcomes
• The Petition – over 4,000 names so far
• Local councillors lobbying for change
• Tenants Working Together Facebook
• Newsletters
• Letters to MPs
• Local MP to raise the issues at the Lib-Dem Conference
Lib-Dem Conference
The conference ‘Condemns the bedroom tax for ‘discriminating against the most vulnerable in society
They also said:
‘There is something going wrong when standards of living go forward for battery hens, but backwards for people’
Following on …
• Radio interviews
• TV interviews
• Newspaper articles
• Invited to other housing associations
• Speaking at rallies
• Revised allocations policy regarding bedroom tax arrears
• Supporting Credit Unions
• Local Food bank
• Personal credit options including
Developing Digital Inclusion
Questions
• What is your landlord doing about Welfare Reform?
• What are you doing as tenant representatives?
• What do you think is the way forward?
What you can do
Talk to:
•your Chief Executive!
•other involved tenants
•your M. P.
•Local councillors
Consequences