ALMO is no solution
Hackney Council is pressing ahead with its Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), despite very little support in the community.
When Hackney Solidarity asked residents of Mountford estate, we found that most people had not heard of the ALMO, and those who had knew little of the detail.
ALMO takes housing out of Council control, making it even further out-of-touch with residents. ALMO will act like a business, and could be a first step to privatisation.
Recent elections for tenants’ and free-/lease-holders’ representatives on the ALMO Board had a low turnout - not surprisingly, as few people knew anything about the candidates.
To stand in the election, you had to support ALMO. Most Tenants’ and Residents’ Association reps refused to stand, knowing that serving on the ALMO Board would stop them speaking up for the community.
The way to get a voice for residents is not through these stitched-up structures, but by our own self-organisation, and linking with our allies in the labour movement. Labour Party conference once again voted against the government and demanded a fairer deal for Council housing.
We need to demand immediate improvements to our homes and estates, through public investment.
A decent place to live should be a basic human right. Housing should be for need, not profit.
Residents stop sell-off
Residents of Aspland and Marcon estates have forced the Council to drop its plan to privatise them.
Hackney Council’s ‘Review’ had planned to transfer both estates to a new landlord, who would demolish Marcon Court and replace it with a new development dominated by expensive private flats.
But residents refused to be conned. As Tony Osborne, Tenants’ & Residents’ Association (TRA) Secretary, said: “We negotiated, but we protested too. We informed and involved residents, and made the Council realise that it could not persuade us to kill off our own community.”
Now the TRA is piling on pressure for improvements.
Local Councillors did not stick up for residents during the Review. Instead, they kept out of it, or sided with the private developers and Town Hall bureaucrats against the community. That is not the kind of representation that working-class communities like ours need.
To add insult to injury, Hackney Council took over running of the estates’ youth club last year - and promptly let it shut down.
These are the actions of a Council that does not care. We should kick them out and replace them with Councillors who do care: principled socialists who genuinely represent our communities.
