Article for housing today

As we enter Black Housing Week, spare a thought for Scotland's visible minorities. Despite the efforts of a handful of agencies, our social housing is almost exclusively geared to the needs of a white society. Invariably, we are witnessing a movement that is failing in its responsibility to challenge institutionalised racism. It manifests itself in failing race targets, token participation by black & minority ethnic groups on quangos and management committees, predominantly white workforces and an overall decrease in black tenancies at a time when housing needs in the poorest black communities have never been greater. Ten years on, we are still arguing for black & minority ethnic housing associations and, more recently, the restoration of ring-fenced development funding for housing associations to address our communities' unmet needs. In that time, there has been an eleven-fold increase in black overcrowding, racist attacks have never been higher (yet racists keep their homes while black families are forced out), and black & minority ethnic elders are voting with their feet to remain in bad housing to avoid the alienation and exclusion of mainstream sheltered housing. Paternalistic attitudes replace respect for our communities' first housing preference, safe, multiracial areas. Every piece of research paints the same picture of exclusion. A cursory reading of the Housing Green Paper shows a complete absence of thinking on black & minority ethnic housing issues. Scottish Homes is consulting on its race equality strategy. We are again disappointed that key aspects of the original strategy, ring-fenced development funding and the appointment of a race equality officer, could be dismantled,There is also the complete failure to support black and minority ethnic housing associations, which would have ensured a degree of empowerment for ethnic minority communities. We believe that the failure to include that strategy is the sole reason why ethnic minorities are so under-represented at every level within Scottish housing today. Scottish Homes insists on forging ahead with an even more retrograde race policy than the original, despite failing in its own race equality track record, casting doubts on the agency's commitment to serving the needs of a multiracial society. Positive Action in Housing, the only national agency representing black & minority ethnic housing concerns has still not been invited to sit on the Scottish Housing Advisory Panel, while welcoming the 'establishment' housing agencies. What a bleak record when you consider the government's ongoing rhetoric about mainstreaming equality issues and tackling social exclusion at every level. How galling that the Macpherson report was launched in a blaze of political and journalistic hype in the same week the House of Commons approved the government's asylum & immigration bill, the effects of which are all too evident in Glasgow, where 2,500 asylum seekers are being unceremoniously dumped in the houses no one else wants, in areas that are no go zones for established visible minorities. Last week, Positive Action in Housing submitted its evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee. This week it is Scottish Homes turn, and then in Autumn we will be addressing the colour-blind approach taken by the Housing Green paper. Our demands are pretty simple. Scottish Homes must face the situation and provide funding and support to Scotland's first black-led housing association. The Scottish Executive must publish a national housing policy geared to the needs and aspirations of a multiracial society and require every public and social landlord to implement a black and minority ethnic housing strategy with proper targets and penalites for non-implementation. Last year we dealt with 1,300 inquiries. Of those, the biggest three problems given by people as reasons for seeking rehousing were racial attacks and harassment, which comprised 18 per cent of our cases; overcrowding, which comprised 16 per cent of our cases; and homelessness, which comprised 28 per cent of our cases. We know that those problems reflect the picture in other parts of Scotland too. Unless the Scottish Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee uses its powers and the opportunity that is presented by the housing green paper, we will continue to witness tokenism and a numbers exercise on the 'ethnic issue', and a failure to address and respond to the housing needs and aspirations of a multiracial society.

30-06-00

R Qureshi