Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts.
A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent en masse until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord. This can be a useful tactic of final resort for use against intransigent landlords, but carries the obvious risk of eviction and bad credit history in some cases.
Russell Edward Brand is an English comedian and actor. He is known for his flamboyant, loquacious style and manner. Brand has received three British Comedy Awards: Best Newcomer (2006), Best Live Stand-Up (2008), and the award for Outstanding Contribution to Comedy (2011).
The Peabody Trust was founded in 1862 as the Peabody Donation Fund and now brands itself simply as Peabody. It is one of London's oldest and largest housing associations with around 55,000 properties across London and the South East. It is also a community benefit society and urban regeneration agency, a developer with a focus on regeneration, and a provider of an extensive range of community programmes.
The Aylesbury Estate is a large housing estate located in Walworth, South East London.
Single room occupancy is a form of housing that is typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from 7 to 13 square metres. In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.
The International Hotel, often referred to locally as the I-Hotel, was a low-income single-room-occupancy residential hotel in San Francisco, California's Manilatown. It was home to many Asian Americans, specifically a large Filipino American population. Around 1954, the I-Hotel also famously housed in its basement Enrico Banduccci's original "hungry i" nightclub. During the late 60s, real estate corporations proposed plans to demolish the hotel, which would necessitate displacing all of the I-Hotel's elderly tenants.
Poplar HARCA is a housing association in the East End of London, England. It is the landlord of about 9,000 homes in the East London area, a quarter of which have been sold leasehold; the remainder are let on assured tenancies at subsidised rent levels.
The Clays Lane Estate was a housing estate in Stratford, east London, and the UK’s largest purpose built housing cooperative. It was an experiment in building close-knit communities as a way of helping vulnerable single people. It became the subject of significant controversy when it was demolished to make way for the site of the London 2012 Olympic games.
The Heygate Estate was a large housing estate in Walworth, Southwark, South London comprising 1,214 homes. The estate was demolished between 2011 and 2014 as part of the urban regeneration of the Elephant & Castle area. Home to more than 3,000 people, it was situated adjacent to Walworth Road and New Kent Road, and immediately east of the Elephant & Castle road intersection. The estate was used extensively as a filming location, due in part to its brutalist architecture.
Formerly known as Riverside Park Community, the apartment complex now known as 3333 Broadway is a group of five buildings ranging in height from 11 to 35 stories at 3333 Broadway between West 133rd and 135th Streets, in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, United States. Completed in 1976, it was the largest residential structure in the United States. Together, the five buildings include 1,200 apartment units and were designed to accommodate nearly 1,190 families. The complex also includes the KIPP Infinity Middle School. The present manager of the property is the Urban American Management Corporation.
In England and Wales, squatting—taking possession of land or an empty house the squatter does not own—occurs for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest, poverty, and recreation. Many squats are residential; some are also opened as social centres. Land may be occupied by New Age travellers or treesitters.
The Carpenters Estate is located in Stratford, Newham, East London, close to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The estate is formed of low rise social housing and three tower blocks. The estate has been continually earmarked for demolition and redevelopment.
Cereal Killer Cafe was a café situated on Brick Lane in Spitalfields, London that served branded breakfast cereals. It was the first cereal-themed café in the United Kingdom. It announced the closure of its UK stores on 8 July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dubai store remains open as of 2022.
The Trew Era Café is a non-profit coffeehouse established in March 2015 in Hackney, East London. The café, opened by comedian and activist Russell Brand, was funded by profits from his 2014 book, Revolution.
Lindsey Garrett is a British social housing campaigner, National Health Service care co-ordinator and political activist. Garrett is currently the Chair of the New Era Tenants Association. She is also the Something New candidate for Mayor of London at the 2016 London mayoral election.
Cressingham Gardens is a council garden estate in Lambeth. It is located on the southern edge of Brockwell Park. It comprises 306 dwellings, a mixture of four, three and two-bedroom houses, and one-bedroom apartments. It was designed at the end of the 1960s by the Lambeth Borough Council Architect Edward Hollamby and second architect Roger Westman, and built at the start of the 1970s. In 2012 Lambeth Council proposed demolishing the estate, to replace the terraced houses by apartment blocks. Most of the apartments would then be for sale to the private sector. The residents, those in Lambeth who wish to prevent the gentrification of the borough, and those who want to conserve what they believe to be important architectural heritage, are campaigning to prevent its demolition.
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. Dwellings built for public or social housing use are built by or for local authorities and known as council houses. Since the 1980s non-profit housing associations became more important and subsequently the term "social housing" became widely used, as technically council housing only refers to housing owned by a local authority, though the terms are largely used interchangeably.
Housing in the United Kingdom represents the largest non-financial asset class in the UK; its overall net value passed the £5 trillion mark in 2014. About 30% of homes are owned outright by their occupants, and a further 40% are owner-occupied on a mortgage. About 18% are social housing of some kind, and the remaining 12% are privately rented.
Focus E15 is a campaign group formed in London in 2013 by a group of mothers threatened with eviction from their emergency accommodation in a hostel for young homeless people in Newham. The group squatted empty flats on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford in September 2014, drawing widespread attention in the mainstream media. Most of the young women were eventually rehoused within the borough, as they had requested. Having won their own battle, they have continued to protest both against the local housing policy of Newham Council and for housing rights more generally. They have done so by occupying various buildings and supporting different individual struggles.
