Curo News

Social Housing has a Black History

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 17:18:23 Z

Curo recently formed a new racial equality colleague network – called Originem (Latin for ‘origin’) – and we’re using Black History Month (BHM) to empower, educate and celebrate. This is very personal for me as my parents were part of the Windrush generation coming to England for better opportunities. However instead of being welcomed they were faced with various forms of racism and signs that read 'No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs' when they were looking for a home.

Black and minority ethnic (BME) people had to contend with poor quality privately rented housing in the inner cities run by slum landlords like the infamous Peter Rachman who provided grossly over-crowded accommodation to immigrants and evicted using intimidation and dogs.

The struggle to find good quality rented housing in the 1950s and 60s sowed the seeds for the BME housing movement.

Housing associations specially created to help immigrants began to emerge. Aggrey Housing Limited appeared in Leeds in 1955, closely followed by the Birmingham Friendship Housing Association, the Bath Voluntary Association for Commonwealth Housing, Nottingham Coloured People’s Housing Society and London’s Tredegar Housing Association. The Rachman scandal, which ended with his death in 1962, also inspired the creation of Shelter and Notting Hill Housing Trust.

However structural discrimination continued and in 1984 the manager of a Reading hostel for young black people, Louis Julienne, co-founded the Federation of Black Housing Organisations (FBHO), an umbrella body for BME housing associations that represented the sector and lobbied government on its behalf. In 1986 the FBHO set in motion the first black housing strategy and over the next few years about 40 BME housing associations were founded. In 2008 the FBHO closed due to funding difficulties, but another representative body, BMENational, was swiftly created only a year later.

In Bristol, United Housing Association was formed in 1985 when local civil rights leaders and activists come together to address the problem of unequal access to decent housing, a problem that particularly affected elders of Caribbean descent. In supporting the foundation of United Housing Association and SARI (Stand Against Racism and Inequality), these leaders looked to address racial discrimination in the core areas of everyday life: the workplace, the home, education and the city’s public spaces.

Although BME housing associations were formed to address the clear and obvious disadvantage facing some communities in accessing good quality affordable housing. They have achieved that and much more: over the decades they played a pioneering role in British society, pushing into the mainstream issues of race, equality and inclusion. They have irrevocably changed the housing landscape.

A BME positive action scheme in Bristol brought me into housing in the 1990s and I have seen a lot of policy interventions over that time.

Many of the BME-led organisations have merged into mainstream housing associations including United. So, in the South West it is up to housing providers like Curo to become the housing associations that finally stamp out discrimination in social housing and welcome and support BME colleagues and customers.

In Bristol as part of the Iconic Black Britons Heritage trail you can take a little walk around St Pauls and see all the murals of the black pioneers who enabled change in social housing and for us all.

Here’s a small selection of the many events and activities happening in #BlackHistoryMonth:

Bristol's BHM magazine is out now - click here to register and view.
Events happening in Bristol - click here to find out more.
Every Sunday in October, Fairfield House Tour, Bath - click here to book your tickets.
11 October, 1-5pm - Regional BHM online conference - click here to find out more.
13 October, 8pm - Exploring Britain’s Black LGBTQIA+ history - click here to find out more.
18 October, 6pm - B&NES webinar - ‘Race equality in B&NES – progress made and challenges ahead' - click here to find out more.
21 October, 6-7pm - Black Poppies in south-west England? Black and Asian experiences during World War One - click here to find out more.
21 October, 7.30-11.30pm - Bop Against Racism with RSVP Bhangra Band - A Love Music Hate Racism Event - click here to find out more.
Lots of other events can be found at www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk

On Stephen Lawrence Day, let’s think about the part we all play in creating a society in which everyone can flourish

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 09:38:37 Z

Today, 22 April, is #StephenLawrenceDay where we remember and celebrate the life of this young man whose life was tragically taken. It is one of the most high-profile racial killings in UK history – the resulting investigation and Macpherson report led to significant changes in attitude surrounding institutional racism, police procedure and to the partial revocation of double jeopardy laws.

I am currently reading Baroness Doreen Lawrence’s book ‘And Still I Rise’ which details the family's own experiences of being treated with suspicion from the outset, rather than with compassion, and of being denied the highest level of professional competence to which they were entitled. Along with the stereotyping and racial profiling by the police of Duwayne Brooks, who was with Stephen Lawrence at the time of the murder.

Stephen’s legacy has had an influence across Britain and even locally; my fantastic friend Pepe Hart was a teacher in Radstock. She was the only Asian Primary Head in Bath & North East Somerset and she introduced an Anti-Racist Curriculum long before anyone was talking about it.

She invited Baroness Doreen Lawrence to her school. Pepe says in her blog “she educated our children in a beautiful and unique way. We saw first-hand how the evils of racism can destroy lives. Our children were captivated and wanted change to happen. They wanted to be part of stamping out racism.”

The school set up Stephen Lawrence room and a statue (pictured) in honour of this talented young man who wanted to be an architect but was needlessly killed before he could fulfil his full potential.

The sensitive way they delivered the story through poetry, dance, art and drama meant the whole community shared the experience.

Pepe has worked with the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation and helped to develop an anti-racist package of learning which can be rolled out to other schools. She says “Stephen’s death is a tragic reminder of the vital need to challenge injustice for the greater good. We should all remember all that Stephen would most certainly have brought to the world. A talented teenager murdered for the colour of his skin. Celebrating Stephen today and always means that out of darkness comes light.”

Stephen Lawrence Day - A Legacy of Change – this short video says it all.

Pepe and I regularly talk about Stephen on our lockdown walks and I really admire how she creatively used his tragic story to deliver an anti-racist message to young children in a majority-white rural school.

This week has also seen the conviction of Derek Chauvin who killed George Floyd. These high-profile hate crimes are not the only ones, but we must make sure they are the last ones.

Alongside all this the recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report argues that institutional racism is no longer an issue in the Britain, but we all know in our hearts that this is not true… yet.

So; let’s commit to using the opportunity that Stephen Lawrence Day gives us to think about the part we all play in creating a society in which everyone can flourish.

At Curo, we must think about how our own systems and processes can create inequalities or unfair advantage and make changes whenever we can. Every Curo colleague should have received hate crime training which gives us all a chance to discuss this issue and ask questions. Please remember language is not the problem – I know it feels like terms are changing every five minutes – it’s the intention behind what you say. If you see or hear anything that is discriminatory ‘call it out’.

Curo’s new customer service plan and the review of how we conduct equality impact assessments (EIAs) give us all at Curo an opportunity to deliver transformational services to our diverse customers. My message to every Curo colleague is: the next time you need to make a decision which affects people ‘check yourself’, as my mum would say, and question those unconscious biases.

This is a journey, but we can get there.