Dismore raises plight of Barnet’s temporary tenants with Mayor
Again I raised the plight of Barnet’s temporary tenants with Mayor Boris Johnson at June’s Mayor’s Question Time.
I asked the Mayor if he thought it was right to leave people in limbo for years, unable to plan their futures with any security because of Barnet’s policy of keeping tenants in insecure temporary accommodation for years, to ensure they had no rights in the council’s ‘regeneration’ schemes.
I highlighted the cases of three tenants to illustrate the problem:
Meral, who has been a temporary non secure tenant for 10 years
Amina, who is now on her 5th address who has been a temporary non secure tenant for a total of 13 years, and has 4 children and an ill husband who has had a heart attack and a stroke, and needs a dialysis machine which cannot fit in their temporary flat
Alem, a temporary non secure tenant for 10 years , whose son aged 10 has kidney disease and needs a transplant. He has been refused a permanent tenancy twice already.
Barnet are treating temporary tenants like pawns on a chess board, the first to be moved and first to be sacrificed as part of its regeneration schemes, which puts such local people at real disadvantage.’
The Mayor’s only answer was to say we needed to build more homes. That is of course self evidently true, but that will not help the temporary tenants, who are not being offered homes as part of the regeneration schemes. With fewer social homes in the regenerations than before, only secure tenants are being rehoused on the rebuilt estates , while temporary tenants have no rights and are moved at the whim of the Council. After so many years, surely it is only fair that they be given some rights and security.