Decaying Homes, Forgotten Lives Report

We all want a home that is safe, free of disrepairs and in liveable condition.

For many social housing tenants in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, this basic human right is not being met. Our survey has found that many residents are living in appalling conditions with their homes having significant disrepairs that have not been rectified by housing providers. Moreover, Disabled residents and those experiencing intersectional exclusion, face even greater barriers to getting their disrepairs resolved and their voices heard.

Ruils and Multicultural Richmond applied and were successful in receiving funding from Inclusion London to create a campaign aimed at both understanding and addressing the problems around social housing disrepairs in the borough, with a specific focus on reaching those who are often intersectionally excluded from sharing their views and experience. In this case people who are Disabled and whose first language is not English.

A collective of organisations actively working with social housing tenants was created to feed into this campaign, comprising of Ruils, Multicultural Richmond, Citizen’s Advice Richmond, SWLEAP, Age UK Richmond and Richmond AID.

Click here to read our full report.

Systemic change is required and we hope that this work, that we have completed as a collective, will be heard and taken seriously by housing associations and change the way they engage with tenants on repairs/reasonable accommodation. We want transparency, honesty and openness and for housing associations to listen to their Disabled tenants.

We are campaigning for change and want to see the housing associations co-producing new systems with Disabled people that are accessible going forward.