Decaying Homes, Forgotten Lives Report

We all want a home that is safe, free of disrepair 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.

Over the last two years we have been working to drive change. So far, we have:

• Co-produced a report highlighting over 100 local people’s experiences
• Created 5 strong recommendations which were communicated in the report
• Presented the report at two meetings with members of the executive leadership teams of both RHP and PA Housing, in which both housing providers agreed to work with us going forward to address issues
• Buy in and support from Councillor Jim Millard, Head of Housing, both Richmond borough MPs, local councillors and the Tenant’s Champion
• Been given an ongoing seat at the Adult Social Services, Health and Housing Committee to scrutinise the quarterly Social Housing Improvement Plan (SHIP) reports – attended 3 pre-meets and 3 committee
• Presented at the Tenant’s Champion Interagency Meetings (3 so far) highlighting the state of disrepairs in social housing and have been invited to the next one
• Had 2 follow up meetings with RHP to determine how we move forward, which has resulted in:
  • RHP looking into ways to deal with backlog of complex cases (i.e. dedicated case worker, dedicated phone line or fortnightly case meetings TBC) where we are now working with the Hypercare team on a fortnightly basis
  • The creation of more accessible communication channels (i.e. in person pop up events, which Ruils and Citizen’s Advice Richmond are hosting at our offices)
  • Ruils drop in sessions have supported 12 people since March 2025
  • The conception of an Inclusion Strategy to better support customers with access needs (which they are now in consultation phases for)
• Had 2 follow up meetings with PA Housing where we discussed an array of things, resulting in:
  • Monthly in-person drop-ins for clients to access PA Housing face to face – Ruils drop-ins have supported 6 people since July 2025
  • Commitment to a stronger in person presence in the borough for residents
  • Raised a number of issues including:
    • Accuracy of access needs information being supplied by the central team to contractors and assurances that this is passed on every time and contractors are actually looking at it
    • Updates on the changes in teams and how they make sure that residents are getting to the right people when they need support
    • Looking into delays with external specialist contractors
• Created a stronger partnership link with the Community Ambassadors and feeding resident voice through our meetings with providers in addition to our own clients’ situations

Our work is ongoing and we are committed to seeing this campaign through so that local people feel the impact.