Researchers call for race equality watchdog to step in over poor housing
The Somali community in London is living in conditions so disproportionately terrible that the situation should be investigated by the race equality watchdog, researchers have warned.
The researchers, from consultancy Migrationwork, said the levels of housing deprivation they found among Somalis in north and east London was so extreme it should be viewed as an emergency.
They were so concerned they contacted the Equalities and Human Rights Commission while they were writing up the research, which was commissioned by Karin Housing Association, a specialist Somali social landlord. One of the report’s final recommendations is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission should launch a formal investigation into Somali housing conditions.
Researchers spoke to 158 Somalis as part of their work. Less than one third had a home big enough for them and their families. The report compares this ‘astonishingly high number’ to overcrowding statistics in Tower Hamlets ‘the most overcrowded borough in England, reporting 13 per cent of families as overcrowded’.
It states: ‘Many faced quite devastating levels of overcrowding. One family of eight, including a disabled woman, share a two-bedroom house, with five beds in one room.’
More than one third reported their homes as needing major repairs. No one surveyed owned their own home.
Sue Lukes, one of the report authors, said: ‘With choice-based lettings [allocation systems] there is an issue that if you are not on the ball and literate it is difficult for you to bid in a smart way.’
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the finding that so many Somalis were living in overcrowded conditions indicated a ‘monumental public policy failure’.
He added: ‘We have created a housing allocation system insufficiently nuanced to understand the specific problems of individual people and individual communities in society.’
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