A former Ujima chief executive responds to Harris Beider's view that it is time for a resurgence of the black housing movement
I used to say that the future of black and minority ethnic housing (BME) was fatally compromised when we – community activists, some from a radical political background – allowed careerists to take all the plum jobs created in the sector.
Many of these individuals were working at much lower levels in the mainstream associations but on the advice of certain consultancy firms were encouraged to apply for top posts. They simply used their time in the BME sector as stepping stones to bigger and better things in the mainstream.
It is little wonder figures such as Darra Singh would come out against "single group funding" or that Steve Douglas would preside over closing down Ujima and transferring its assets to London & Quadrant when other solutions were available.
While Harris Beider's analysis of the rise and fall of the BME housing sector is very good, it comes from an academic viewpoint. Those of us working at the coalface saw the situation somewhat differently. He fails to mention how the mainstream housing sector changed over the same period, when associations went from being community or area-based charitable organisations to large not-for-profit developing and letting companies with charitable status – mainly for avoiding tax.
These associations cared much less about who they housed and whether they were still in need at the point at which offers were made. It was more about how many "units" they owned or how large their funding allocations were. They saw their role as deliverers of the government's social housing targets. Top salaries grew disproportionately, some chief executives paid much more than the prime minister.
The community activists who started the first BME associations came into the housing sector because we wanted to help the poor, needy and homeless people in our own communities. We did not sit comfortably with the increasingly professional social housing sector.
When, along with some black housing workers, I started Ujima in the summer of 1977, we were housing almost exclusively homeless black youth from the inner cities who had been thrown out by their strict first generation immigrant parents.
When I left in 1987 we were still housing the same client group, which had grown to more than 4,000 people mostly in about 800 shared short-life properties and 28 hostels. We were also employing up to 200 young black people repairing short-life properties while learning various construction skills. We ran a housing advice centre, a resettlement service, two single parents projects, an unemployment project for black youth and other schemes managed through a network of seven area-based offices.
We had only 330 permanent dwellings, although another 400 were in the pipeline. My immediate successor at Ujima dismantled all non-housing activities to concentrate on developing permanent homes like any other mainstream provider.
BME associations did go through some governance difficulties that could not be internally resolved. Changes to regulatory standards set out by the National Housing Federation reduced accountability by curbing the powers (and numbers) of shareholders who could act as trustees.
The solution fiercely promoted by the sector – and by some regulators – was going into "group structures" that killed off the independence and the raison d'être of the sector. Able community leaders saw little point in giving their heart and soul to organisations led by a white parent. It was as though black people were children, distrusted to own grant aided assets and operate with independence.
BME strategies were successful in their aims to set up more BME associations because of the personal commitment given to the strategies by senior staff at the Housing Corporation. Unfortunately they had little control over the colleagues in regulation who bullied mainly small associations out of existence. All that is history and there is little point in raking over the past.
Only associations still loyal to our original concepts will have a reason to survive. Survival has to be measured in what they do for the community and who they house, not by simply continuing to have offices, employing a few staff and owning a few hundred dwellings.
In the context of Harris Beider's analysis, we have to move on.
Tony Soares is a housing consultant and a member of the Guardian housing network editorial advisory panel
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