There are few people who have had as big an impact on the social housing sector in the recent past than the campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa.
Tweneboa, 25, has lived in social housing for most of his life and came to prominence in 2021 when he took on his social housing provider, Clarion.
He posted videos of the dilapidated living conditions affecting his family and other residents at the Eastfields housing estate in south London. He had waited 18 months for promised repairs to take place. His videos posted to social media went viral, and action was swiftly taken. Since then, he’s highlighted similar struggles faced by thousands of residents across the country. He has brought issues of poor standards in social housing to the attention of prominent Labour and Conservative politicians.
Earlier this year, Tweneboa appeared on the New Statesman Podcast to talk about his new book, Our Country in Crisis, social housing reform, and his expectations of the new Labour government.
Below is an abridged version of the full interview.
To what extent is housing contributing to wider crises across the country?
It’s huge. It’s one of the drivers of many other social issues that ordinary individuals experience.
If you’re a child growing up, and you’re homeless, or you’re living in temporary accommodation, or you’re moved from different parts of the country simply for a place to call home – that affects your education. And often these young people are from disadvantaged backgrounds as it is, so we’re not setting them up to prosper if we’re allowing this issue to fester.
But also earlier, one of the NHS bosses came out and said you cannot claim to have fixed the NHS if you first and foremost haven’t fixed housing. Last year the NHS spent £1.4bn looking after people living in poor conditions; £38m spent on looking after those who had reached out to the NHS suffering with issues as a result of living in homes filled with damp and mould. We talk about crime, poverty… When you really think about it, and link together, there’s one common denominator – and that issue is often housing.
Just how bad are some conditions for some residents?
It’s hard to even describe some of the conditions I’ve seen people living in and subjected to. I’ve been in homes where I’ve had to cover my shoes with Sainsbury’s bags before I went in because they were absolutely flooded with raw sewage… [I’ve seen] cockroaches, mice, ceilings collapsing, leaks… the list could go on. It’s endless.
Local authorities, housing associations and governments simply did not take it seriously enough. I’ve spoken to MPs that have told me that these housing issues take up the majority of their caseload and have done for a very long time. So no one can sit here and tell me they didn’t know about these issues. There simply wasn’t political will to deal with it, unfortunately.
What is the “problem with Westminster” that you outline in your book, Our Country in Crisis?
There’s a lack of understanding; our politicians will not be living in the conditions that I see people living in, and that plays a massive role. It’s very easy to talk about an issue. But seeing people live in those conditions, or living in them yourself, gives you a different type of motivation for wanting change.
I’m glad that I met Michael Gove [Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities until July’s general election] instead of the previous housing secretaries, because quite frankly, they were useless.
But now we’ve got a Labour government, [and] a secretary of state that has lived in social housing, and knows how important it is. I hope Angela [Rayner] is able to deliver what it is that people so desperately need. Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer have been talking about delivering economic prosperity – they won’t do that unless they tackle the housing crisis in this country.cwqd[Gove] got through the Social Housing Regulation Bill. Did I want it to be stronger? Absolutely. The Renters’ Reform Bill didn’t get through… but he was receptive to the realities of what was going on. You need your whole party to care in order to get legislation through, and that simply just wasn’t going to happen [under the previous Conservative government].
What do you think of Labour’s plans for housing?
They’ve talked about building more council homes… [but] they haven’t really given us numbers apart from saying they’re going to build 1.5 million homes.
What we do know is the last time a government was building 300,000 homes per year – which I believe was in the Seventies – it was because a large number of that was council homes. If they’re going to meet that target, they have to prioritise the building of social homes, because that is where the current crisis is… That’s where the 145,000 homeless kids are currently stuck waiting for a place to call home; that number will continue to grow if we don’t prioritise this. [Labour] are going to have to build more council homes on a scale as big as after the Second World War.
My worry is that… [they are] going to be built [predominantly] by the private sector and there’s going to be a reliance on the private sector. From what I’ve seen within housing when it comes to the private sector and contractors, is that there’s one thing they care about – and that’s making as much money as possible. We need the government and local authorities to [directly] be building council homes. It is an investment. It has been shown already that if they invest, the economy will reap the rewards in years to come.
Do you see yourself going into politics one day?
As I’m getting older, I’m probably considering it a lot more than I would have a few years ago.
I have been banging on about class and representation and wanting to see more people like me in politics. And sometimes you have to be the person that puts your head above the parapet and actually goes in there to try and shake things up. I hope I’ve been able to shake things up from the outside, especially in regards to housing.
I’ll always be a housing campaigner regardless of whether I go into Westminster – and maybe I will – but… I want to see this government succeed. If I can help that, fair enough. But what I will continue to do is advocate for those outside of Westminster who are struggling.
This article first appeared in our Spotlight Housing supplement, published on 29 November 2024.
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