Politics of Housing conference at UEL

Amidst the current UK housing crisis, politicians including the Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, and the Deputy Mayor for Housing at the Greater London Authority, Tom Copley, are both attending. 

Hosted by the Centre for Social Change and Justice at UEL, Dr Anna Minton (ACE), Professor Jeremy Gilbert (ACI), Dr. Debra Shaw, Dr. Penny Bernstock (UCL) and Dr Lynne McCarthy (Co-director of CSCJ) are leading the conference in Stratford alongside a number of speakers from London authorities, international universities and housing associations.

Convenors said the conference would aim to find solutions to some of the current issues.

Housing has become one of the definitive social issues of our time. At a time when unequal access to wealth and resources threatens to disenfranchise large sectors of the population, both in the UK and elsewhere, increasing numbers of people are insecurely housed and in danger of homelessness.

“Housing is no longer a private matter: rather its political and public dimensions are more visible through polarised urban populations experiencing the binaries of unaffordability, eviction and social cleansing set against speculative development, unfettered rents, large dormant properties and unattainable property prices. The meaning and uses of housing have also become more acutely ambivalent when its purpose as a market commodity is often in conflict with its use as shelter,” convenors added.

As cities become inhospitable to any form of activity other than rent-seeking, young people and low-income populations in particular are being priced-out of the urban environment. These factors are already impacting the cultural life of cities and making life increasingly precarious for cultural producers, from independent retailers to performing artists. The impact on collective and individual mental and physical health is likely to be considerable.

The conference will ask questions such as: how did we get here and what can we do about it? How can we live, work, create and care under these circumstances? And if we can’t, what are the consequences? What is the future of experimentation, innovation and access in the fields of architecture, social housing and household-creation? Where and how will we live in a century defined by unprecedented challenges, and how can we contribute to meaningful public conversations - and efficacious political struggles - around these crucial issues?

Rokhsana Fiaz, Mayor of Newham, will give the keynote address in Friday July 7, and the Deputy Mayor for Housing at the Greater London Authority, Tom Copley, will lead the Cross borough housing policy-making workshop to put forward alternative strategies.

Gentrification and dispossession and counter-strategies will be debated by Loretta Lees, Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University and University College London’s Mike Edwards, who works with community group Just Space. A policy-making workshop will see Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor of Housing for London, Assembly members and Council Leaders and Cabinet members from across London put forward alternative strategies.

Sign up here.