Learning from the Struggle: Tenants Fight Evictions in Lambeth

Lambeth Council is trying to evict more than 200 people using no-fault evictions, leaving many of them homeless. But the tenants are fighting back, as James Holland explains.

In March, rs21’s South London branch hosted a meeting with tenant activists from Homes for Lambeth Tenants. This was the second in a series of workers’ inquiry sessions organised by the branch, aiming to build links with and learn from ongoing workers’ struggles across South London. The ongoing crisis-ridden redevelopment of South London, championed by a contradictory coalition of ideologically adrift local councils and profiteering developers, is a key site of conflict and resistance for the capital’s workers.

Homes for Lambeth

The tenant activists explained that they are currently private renters facing eviction on Fenwick Estate. The widespread practice of callous no-fault eviction by private landlords is a key driver of London’s housing crisis. However, in this instance the feckless ‘private’ landlord is none other than Lambeth Council itself. Hiding behind the mask of Homes for Lambeth Living, a wholly-owned subsidiary, the council is acting as a private landlord to profit from the housing crisis.

Homes for Lambeth Living is part of the Homes for Lambeth Group, a special purpose vehicle for the building and management of affordable housing set-up in 2017 by Lambeth Council. The use of arm’s length management and development companies was, at the time, a novel strategy being pursued by several councils in an attempt to deliver housing while avoiding borrowing caps and obligation around Right to Buy that would constrain more direct ‘self-delivery’. More nefariously, it allows councils to moonlight as commercial landlords, avoiding provisions that ban councils using insecure Assured Shorthold tenancies usually restricted to private landlords — a decision which Homes for Lambeth tenants are now challenging in the High Court.

Among the Homes for Lambeth Group’s responsibilities was a controversial estate regeneration programme initiated in 2012. The programme included demolition of several estates to be rebuilt on a  ‘cross-subsidy’ model, whereby homes built for market sale would subsidise homes built for social and intermediate rents. According to the Public Interest Law Centre, the programme would net a total of only 40 new social homes and even those would be consistently more expensive than what they replace. To prepare for demolition, the council began moving social tenants off the estates and buying back leaseholder properties sold under Right to Buy. The repurchased properties were then rented out by Homes for Lambeth Living to make a quick buck off ‘private’ tenants, in part to offset the loans required to buy back the properties. Crucially, these ‘private’ tenants were not informed of the council’s plan to end their shorthold tenancies with eviction.

Arguably, the Homes for Lambeth Group was an attempt by a hollowed out and incapacitated local government to deliver affordable housing and increased density while under significant constraints. However, the cross-subsidy model consistently leads to displacement and a net decrease in truly affordable homes. A less generous observer might hear echoes of Southwark Council head of regeneration, who all but argued for social cleansing at the outset of the disastrous gentrification of Elephant & Castle, “social housing generates people on low incomes coming in and that generates poor school performances, middle class people stay away.” 

Either way, the programme failed on its own terms. A 2022 independent review of the company found that it was marked by ‘inconsistent approaches, poor communications, delays, lack of consideration, and confusion of responsibilities between HfL and Lambeth Council’ to the point of ‘mutual hostility.’ In the meantime, public mood has turned against undemocratically imposed estate renewals and, crucially for Lambeth Council, ballot requirements have been introduced as a requirement for GLA funding. Subsequently, the council has now abandoned several previous decisions to demolish and rebuild, with the future of Fenwick estate, for example, now ‘reset’ to an options appraisal stage. Simultaneously, Homes for Lambeth is being wound up and its functions reabsorbed into the council.

This failed attempt at more direct delivery of housing by a local council is an interesting case study for those of us who can be found chanting ‘No housing! No peace!’ on the streets of London. The redevelopment of state capacity for large scale housing delivery is not, it seems, a simple question. The number of councils engaged in directly delivering housing has increased from 65% in 2013 to 79% in 2023. As socialists, we need to go beyond sloganeering and aim to understand the different strategies pursued by local councils, what they mean for residents and workers, and how we can create the space for something better.

Tenant Resistance

Caught in the middle of the council’s disarray are the Homes for Lambeth tenants, who the council are now moving to evict. On the council’s own account, this is to urgently repurpose the homes for temporary accommodation. However, this rings hollow when a freedom of information request has found 148 properties in the impacted estates are not in use. Residents report that the homes of evicted tenants are left standing vacant, leading to disrepair and causing issues for the surrounding occupied homes.

The residents turned activists suggested the real urgency comes from a need to get tenants out before Section 21 notices are abolished, which they report was highlighted as a potential ‘risk’ in council documents revealed as part of a resident’s legal challenge. The use of Section 21 notices by a Labour council while the national party is committed to their abolition is par for the course hypocrisy. The issuing of a Section 21 notice to evict a pregnant woman the same month her baby is due seems remarkably cruel, even by their own ghoulish standards.

Additionally, if the council holds out hope to continue with their thwarted plans to demolish the estates, they will now need to win a vote with estate residents. Temporary accommodation residents pose less of an obstacle than secure tenants, being subject to less stringent voter eligibility requirements and tending to have less of a connection to the estate or ongoing campaigns against demolition.

Against the council’s cynicism and underhanded tactics, there is however some hope. One of the young activists leading the campaign explained she was organising heavily around Palestinian Solidarity when she got wind of the council’s eviction campaign and concluded ‘I would be such a hypocrite if I didn’t fight this thing.’ With mentorship from a member of Housing Rebellion, she put letters through her neighbours, found another politically sympathetic tenant in the same situation, and together began mounting a campaign of resistance.

The activists coordinate with other tenants through a WhatsApp group, hosting weekly meetings and hosting eviction resistance training. Struggling against atomisation with organisation, a problem of individuals is being transformed into a collective struggle for secure housing. One tenant who attended the meeting, a mum with two kids, said ‘when you [the activists] came to our door we found out we can fight and we can stay’ and, to a cheer, announced ‘I have rights, I’m not moving.’ A collective effort to refuse eviction could force the council to negotiate or face costly court battles and unwanted public scrutiny into its appalling behaviour.

This activist work shows that resistance is possible but by no means spontaneous. It takes organisers to make a revolution. The campaign is possible because a critical mass of tenants were already engaged by the political left, through Palestine solidarity and other social movements. Their fledgling efforts were supported by hard-won networks of housing activist groups like London Renters Union and Housing Rebellion. It is a lively ecology of socialists and organisers, and the not always glamorous ‘spade-work’ taken to maintain them, that provide the infrastructure for organised resistance. Through building links between workers’ struggles across the capital, rs21’s South London branch hopes to contribute in a small way to that vital ecology.