Hillview blogger: Local history

Showing posts with label Local history. Show all posts

Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Old pictures of the neighbourhood

These photos come from a booklet - King's Cross - a tour in time, by Mark Aston & Lesley Marshall; published by Camden Local Studies & Archives Centre in 2006 - and is available for £5.99 or to borrow at the public library. (Click with your mouse on the pictures to enlarge them.)

Why this blog?

Hi,
this blog is intended first of all for comments and information relating to life as tenants on Hillview Estate, King's Cross, London WC1. (The estate comprises several 19th century blocks containing 210 flats). But it is open to comments from all social housing tenants, wherever they live - and from all those interested in housing struggles. So, as well as our landlord's practice (and malpractice), we will also cover wider issues about housing locally, nationally and internationally.

The landlord of the Estate is Community Housing Association (CHA), who are now part of a larger 'umbrella group' - One Housing Group (OHG) - who also manage other properties and Housing Associations (such as Toynbee and Island Homes). As well as managing social housing OHG also indulges in property speculation, building homes for sale or rent at market prices - tenants' homes are considered 'assets' used as guarantees for the bank loans that fund this speculation. (So, in theory, if OHG ever went bust through some bad investments and the government refused to bail them out, our homes could be grabbed by the banks and/or other financial lenders.)

There is a long-running and widespread dissatisfaction of OHG tenants about the often poor services provided by the landlord - and about being overcharged for them; so we will also cover more general views concerning all tenants of One Housing Group.

This blog is intended to encourage closer links between Hillview tenants and also between all OHG tenants, wherever they live. We also intend to provide necessary useful information to tenants that has not previously been made easily available to them. Our landlord often appears to tenants as more interested in maintaining its massive salaries for the top management personnel (with expenses and pension funds, nearly £200,000 for the Chief Executive Mick Sweeney) than in delivering an adequate service. Fragmentation makes us weaker, while co-ordination makes us stronger; and we have to fight sometimes to get what we need. We'll fight better if we fight together.

Comments from all OHG tenants (and others) are welcome; feel free to e-mail us; hillviewblog@yahoo.co.uk
We don't guarantee that all comments received by e-mail will be posted here, but all will be considered. Comments posted can be anonymous. And the comment boxes under these posts are also there to be used...

Joe Tenant

Hillview blogger

Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Old pictures of the neighbourhood

Why this blog?

Followers

Blog Archive

Labels