NO VOICE LITTLE CHOICE

Research commissioned by Karin Housing Association and carried out by research consultant Sue Lukes, Hannah Lewis and Mohamed Aden Hassan, has found evidence of housing deprivation among Somalis in north and east London so extreme as to be called an emergency. 158 people interviewed told researchers about the conditions in which they live, their efforts to improve them and their difficulties in accessing appropriate advice and advocacy. They talked about the effects on them and their community, especially the youth, and why they believed this had happened. The researchers also interviewed local council officers and discussed the issue with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission because many interviewees spoke of discrimination. In these areas of significant housing need the comparison made with general conditions do show that levels of housing deprivation within Somali communities in these areas are extremely high and probably unparalleled by other communities. While 85% of Londoners find their current housing satisfactory, only 12% of those in our survey reported this to be so for them. The way in which this deprivation is combined with, and connected to, high levels of unemployment and long term illness and disability, results in the community feeling deprived and demoralised, under attack and sometimes helpless. Less than a third of those interviewed had a home big enough for them and their family (compared, for example, with Tower Hamlets, the most overcrowded borough in England, reporting 13% of families as overcrowded). Many faced quite devastating levels of overcrowding, with six children in a two bedroom flat, nine people in three rooms, or seven people in one bedroom. One family of eight including a disabled woman share a two bedroom house, with five beds in one room.