‘We must lead with compassion’.

Romford Councillor David Taylor writes his monthly Taylor Talks in the Havering Daily.

Imagine you’re a single mother of two, you’ve been forced out of your home by a landlord who is selling up. You go to the council for help and they find you accommodation. “I’m sorry”, you’re told, “We’ve only got a space in a hotel for now, and it’ll be a few miles down the road”. 

The council you have gone to is spending £millions every year finding accommodation for families like you. They are racing towards bankruptcy because of it. They’d love to book you in closer to where you live, but the hotels aren’t taking council bookings. 

You reach your new accommodation and are grateful that, at least for now, you and your children have a roof over your head. Then you open a local paper.

Local residents are angry that you’re there. They are suspecting you may be an illegal migrant. A senior political leader and community spokespeople call you a “drain on local resources”. Local social media is teaming with anger and suspicion towards you, and you hear of an ‘investigation to get answers’. 

I’ve never been in that situation, and I thank God for that. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like. Just when you get a moment of relief and a glimmer of hope, you are labelled as a problem in a new community. A community you never asked to be placed into and one where you have no friends or support network. You don’t know the GP, where the library is, how to get around. Everyone you rely on is scattered across London, and now you are the problem. 

This example isn’t some myth, it’s what happens to families all across the UK. And it’s deadly. A total of 142,500 children are living in temporary accommodation across the county.  According to an NHS report, living in temporary accommodation can be linked to 55 deaths of children since 2019. 42 of those were under the age of one. Over 19,000 children under the age of one are in temporary accommodation. 

This is criminal and we should be outraged that this is happening here in the UK. When we find these people are being placed into our community, we should be reaching out to them with a loving embrace to ask them how we can support them and what they need.

In Havering we have 1,100 families in temporary accommodation. Our council places some of these in hotels and homes outside of the borough. That’s far from ideal and we need to find a way to ensure that doesn’t have to happen. It is why Havering reopened Royal Jubilee Court, to provide families with homes in our borough. It’s why councils all over London and the UK are buying homes off the market for these families. 

Other boroughs are doing the same and sometimes they book out accommodation in Havering. Waltham Forest has recently placed 30 families, as well as 30 individuals, into a local Romford hotel. It has also confirmed that they are about to access 200 new homes, in Waltham Forest, to ensure those families can be placed closer to home where they have friends and support. 

The community has important questions it wants answered. They raise questions about whether those housed are refugees, and they want to know why we still see local people homeless. 

These questions aren’t invalid, we must find the answers to them. But the way we must approach this is with kindness and compassion. Those families, 30 of whom are living in a hotel in Romford right now and don’t want to be there, are being made to feel like they are a problem. 

Homelessness doesn’t know and respect borough boundaries and the solutions to it won’t either. 

Last year, I joined a national charity in a campaign in Parliament. We asked the government to increase housing benefits to the same level as the average local rent. It always used to be this way and that meant that local Havering families could use housing benefits to rent a home locally. Everyone told me we couldn’t get it done, and that it wasn’t my business as a Councillor to go to Parliament. But we won, it was raised, and I’ll go to Parliament any time to fight for causes like that. 

I’ve also reached out to Waltham Forest Council, and a housing charity, and will be reaching out to Councillors across London to find solutions to this. A joined up approach should mean we can ensure more people are housed locally, instead of being ripped from their communities. 

I’m angry about homelessness. I’m angry that people are being sent miles away from all they know. But I’m angry at the politicians for this and I’m going to be mindful of my language because of that. 

It’s two generations of politicians, on all sides, who failed to fix the social housing sector. Allowing homes to be sold off without the money being put back in for new ones. Thatcher had the right idea, but poor execution. Blair, Cameron, Johnson… none of them fixed this and the problem has reached a peak. 

I’m not hopeful about this Labour government. I’ve carefully looked at it’s housing plans and I don’t think they will work. There’s nothing in them that will make landlords want to rent again and they won’t build the homes we need. 

But that’s the point, I’m angry at the government about it and I’ll direct my anger there. I will work across political parties and systems to try find solutions. 

What I won’t do is demonise those families who are being housed in totally unsuitable accommodation. 

Havering’s resources are under strain, yes. That’s why we sometimes house people in places like Thurrock. But compassion costs nothing. Being careful with one’s words costs nothing. It costs nothing to refrain from stirring up suspicion and anger. Leaders who are calling these families a “drain on resources” are being irresponsible.

There was a time when the phrase ‘compassionate Conservatism’ was popular. It focused on finding practical solutions, providing genuine help, but leading with compassion. 

Now is the time for us to bring that back. 

To those of you who are housed temporarily in Havering. I’m sorry you are here. Not because I don’t want you here, or because you are unwelcome. But because I know you don’t want to be here and would rather be in a home. 

I won’t fight you, I’ll fight for you. Just like I’ve been fighting for Havering residents.

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