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Tenants leaders at Monday’s meeting |
Outcry as ‘independent voice of tenants’ is silenced
Chairman calls emergency meeting to discuss group’s future
ISLINGTON’S independent voice for tenants is being disbanded following a majority vote at a packed meeting on Monday night.
There was virtually no support for keeping the Federation of Islington Tenants Associations (FITA) among the 17-member board of Homes for Islington – the borough’s housing agency.
However, deputy Labour leader Councillor Richard Greening called for an urgent meeting to discuss how tenants can remain “independently” represented.
After almost 30 years FITA – described as a constant thorn in the side of HFI – is to be absorbed within the agency with the loss of three full-time jobs, the closure of an office and the saving of £100,000.
The federation, however, is not going down without a fight.
Chairman Dr Brian Potter is organising a public meeting on Wednesday at Islington Town Hall beginning at 7pm so that the voices of all the tenants and residents association representatives can be heard.
He plans to go over the heads of HFI and appeal directly to Islington Council to keep the tenants’ organisation going.
But Islington‘s deputy leader Lib Dem Councillor Terry Stacy suggested that the only way FITA could remain in its current form would be to run without funding as a voluntary organisation.
Around 40 angry tenant leaders packed into the boardroom at HFI’s HQ to hear from its chief executive Eamon McGoldrick why FITA had to go.
He said: “We are committed to ensuring all tenants and residents have access to representation, not just the few.”
HFI maintain that 50 per cent of tenants have no representation and only 38 per cent of currently recognised tenant and resident associations claim their support grants and are active.
HFI also claim that FITA is a mainly middle-aged organisation that does not reach black and minority ethnic groups. This is all hotly disputed by FITA.
Holloway tenants’ representative Thomas Cooper told the meeting: “We haven’t applied for our meagre £250 annual grant in the past three years. However, in the past four years we have raised £125,000 to replace the entry systems on the Lower Hilldrop estate; we raised an additional £68,000 from a variety of charities to improve the environment, and £6,000 for sport.
“I have never claimed a single penny in expenses. The problem with HFI is that they judge output by the amount that you spend. But with tenants and residents associations it’s about the amount that you put in.”
Irene Spence, a director of FITA, thought the decision diabolical.
She said: “They will be closing the individual tenants and residents groups next. The biggest insult is that they want to replace us with focus groups. That’s when they pay people for their opinions.”
Helen Cagnoni, a tenants’ leader from Clerkenwell, warned that housing meetings organised by HFI could be boycotted.
She said: “HFI have a statutory duty to consult us but if we won’t talk to them en mass then Islington council will have to get involved.”
Richard Fadoju, chairman of the Hornsey Rise and Manchester Mansions tenants and residents association, said FITA had always provided vital support.
“The trouble when you deal with HFI is that you never know who to talk to,” he said.
“You build a relationship with one person and within three months they have moved on or left and you have to go through the whole process again.”
HFI board member and Lib Dem Councillor Ursula Woolley said she knew that many tenant groups had had good support from FITA over the years.
“But we need to make sure that there are good and active tenant and residents’ associations helping all the borough’s residents,” she added. |
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