I am honoured to inform you that I have been appointed to the board of Venture Housing Association (Ltd).
Housing has always been extremely important to me, and social housing more than any other. I remember talking about this before, but whether I have blogged about it I don't know. And I don't much fancy trawling through 606 entries to check it out. I do recall discussing it at my interview for the candidature of Kensington and Fairfield back in 2005 though.
I think it was Maslow's Hierarchy (Pyramid) of Needs that identified that after oxygen, water, food, sex and sleep, our next need was a safe, warm, secure place to live - a home.
I am sure that is true. It was all very well TB claiming that his aim and his passion was for Education, Education, Education, but I have always been of the view that you cannot get into education until you have somewhere to leave your sleeping bag and your ruck-sack between begging sessions. In short, you need a home. You need somewhere to leave your growing amount of "stuff" before you can start to attend places of education and study.
And so I think Social Housing is more important than Education. Gordon Brown appeared to agree with me when he became PM although he has not really mentioned it much since. I hope he has not changed his mind, because it is critical in my view.
And that is why I was so keen to join the board of a local Housing Association - a small but beautiful one, operating in Liverpool and on the Wirral whose purpose- built and rather lovely Head Office is on Boaler Street, Kensington. Not for them the expensive city centre post-codes. They put their money and their roots into a very deprived part of L6.
And now I am on their board - not via Liverpool City Council but because I asked them if they would accept an application from a private individual who thinks housing is vital and who happens to represent a large chunk of their tenants.
Last Tuesday, after having examined my application form, received my £1 share application and heard from the Chair and Deputy-Chair about my initial interview, the board agreed my application.
I am looking forward to working with them in L6 - the twilight zone
2 comments:
As Chair of Kensington BLP I can say that you did indeed concentrate on housing. We have ourselves in a mess not just here in Liverpool (though it is worst than most) but across the UK when it comes to social housing. As long as we have people who want to provide the best, at a decent cost to those in society who either choose not to own or cannot, then we will get there. Housing is crucial and it deserves all of our efforts. Well done and I hope you can affect the changes you want to see in this area.
They do a cracking curry and chips fish supper too!!!
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