Workshop with Tower Block UK to members of London Tenant Federation

This week I presented to tenant reps who form the London Tenant Federation. Also on the bill was iconic campaigner for Tower Block UK – Danielle Gregory.

Tower Block UK partnered with MySociety to create the wonderful FixMyBlock platform that combines resources, templates and guides relating to organising against bad housing. I would call MySociety tech action and it started with a group of coders interested in the birth of the internet and how it could be used in 1996. In 2004 an associated group developed ‘Fax Your Representative’ which later developed into ‘Write To Them’. Their other projects have included ‘What Do They Know‘ – the Freedom of Information (FOI) Request platform which allows you to make FOI requests publicly and follow the ones you are interested in. This is a great platform for campaigning.

Danielle was talking about the FixMyBlock platform to tenants so they could take action them selves and I was talking about what can be done ahead of taking legal action. Often tenants need to have exhausted their landlord’s internal complaint procedure before taking action, it is good to raise a formal complaint after a few days of reporting the issue if it is not addressed!

I prepared a presentation which sits within my workshop series “Using the Law to Support Our Community”. Read it below!