I work I've worked since I was 16. I've paid me national insurance and me tax every day since I've worked. Yet I can't afford my own home to house me and me son.
>> You've got all these developments all over Liverpool. They say yeah it's going to be 20% affordable. >> They don't explain what that means.
>> It's totally unaffordable. >> I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to private rent again. >> Homeless.
>> Homeless. >> Yeah. They're going homeless.
They have not any choice. >> It's a cue for sin. >> It is.
Yeah. Everyone's at least two bad decisions away on the streets. >> Does everyone have a life there?
>> They put in migrants in every town >> and then the homeless who are in those towns aren't getting the help that they need. >> Well, it's been going on for a while, but you would think right now, wouldn't you, that the the beginning and ending and all bits in between of British politics is all about asylum and immigration. But there's one issue sort of threaded through all that fers away like a headache.
It's the roofs over people's head. How's it? >> Nice to meet you.
John, come on in, mate. >> Thank you. That's John's dad's name.
>> Nice to meet you. >> Best name in the world. I'll show you into the kitchen.
It's just fallen apart. There's no doors on the cupboards. >> We've come to see Helen.
>> There's numerous leaks. >> Who's rented this house for over 20 years, but is now living out Liverpool's housing crisis. >> This is my son's bedroom.
It just doesn't shut. So, it's always freezing and drafty and it's damp here. >> Then we have mold >> all on the ceiling.
>> You know, I don't open the curtains any longer cuz it's unhealthy. It smells and it's it's embarrassing. This is not home anymore.
>> After being promised repairs, Helen received something else instead. >> An eviction order. >> And all your stuff's in boxes here cuz at any point you could be moved out of it.
That's correct. >> It's left her in an impossible predicament. >> I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to private rent again.
My next door neighbor now is paying um 1,400 a month for this property. >> You can't afford that? >> I can't afford that.
No. Can I? No.
I'm a single mom. I work for the NHS. I've worked for the NHS for 24 years.
>> But the social housing situation in Liverpool from your perspective looks like what? Well, there's around about 2,000 people before me on the social housing register list in Liverpool. Until I become made homeless, be put up in a hostel with my children.
Then I'm classed as a band-aid. It causes me great distress. Um, I went off with a deep depression from work.
I couldn't could no longer cope. a struggle again with me 15year-old because he can't get up in the morning and come down and have any breakfast and then go off with a a skip in his step to school because he knows what's hanging over us. >> You spoke at Labour Party conference the other week.
>> I did. Yeah. >> What did you tell him?
>> My name's Hela. I'm 43 years old. >> I'm a single mom with two children.
I'm fighting just to keep my head above water. This is what life in poverty looks like. I pawned every piece of jewelry I owned just to buy food.
I've been abroad since I was 21. Not asking for pity. I just want fairness.
>> Ready? >> I'm always ready. Is this on?
>> So, this shot is where I walk in through this mile of leaflets >> on nuclear weapons. >> Thank you very much. Speak up to the children of Gaza.
[Music] >> It's like Instagram in real life, isn't it? [Music] >> The old team back together. >> It feels like it.
>> It's been a long time, hasn't it? >> A very long time. You and I have been coming here for 15 years saying, "God, this is terrible, isn't it?
This doesn't really speak to anybody. Is everything wrong with politics? " I mean, all these people in dark suits, you know, they look like a powerful elite, right?
And and I can't help. >> Isn't this a bit obvious? We've been saying this for years.
>> Yeah, we've only said it a lot cuz it's true. >> Steve Reed, we ask him. By chance, we bump into the housing secretary wearing his Build Baby Build merch.
Oh, this is too good. >> Here we go. Steve Reed, >> right?
If phone guy gets an interview and we don't, there's something wrong. >> Steve Reed, you got two minutes for the Guardians awardw winning any web Westminster series. Come on then.
>> You're very kind. >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, the reason I'm wearing this hat that says build baby build on it is because >> it's a very clear message and it does cut through a bit more than if I just gave a standard speech. And I want people to understand that we're going to do something to get Britain building again. >> I think it's a defining problem of modern Britain.
It's a housing shortage. >> The number of people sleeping rough under bridges and underpasses doubled under the previous uh government. The amount of social housing we're building went down by 3/4 previous government.
So if we don't build, we can't solve those problems. So it is one of the big crises facing the country. >> So much so that you're wearing that hat.
>> I'm wearing this hat merely to communicate positively that we're going to do something about the problem. How do you feel about where the country seems to be heading politically and socially and all of that? >> The country is angry and you can understand why because they were serly let down by the previous government making big promises they never delivered on.
We've got four more years to run. >> I said how do you feel? >> How do I feel?
>> You yourself feel. >> Do you know why I ask you that? >> Well, I'll tell you cuz I feel frightened.
>> Yeah. Okay. Well, weirdly I feel optimistic really >> because Yeah.
I think we can turn this around. >> Thank you. Motion on housing.
>> Ah, you did the motion on housing >> and not discussed as a compass at all. >> But just remind me the motion on housing was ruled out. They don't want to talk about it.
We've just walked down from the station through Liverpool and there's tents and they're talking about homes for people to buy. We need council housing. We have had more funding than we've had for council housing for many years, but it's not enough.
I can't get through, man. >> I can't get through the bloody powers. >> Film this.
>> I will be proposing a series of new tests. >> Can we put the sound up? >> Such as being in work, making national insurance contributions, not taking a penny in benefits, learning English to a high standard.
>> That's the Home Secretary Shabban Mammud speaking just a few months ago. Let's talk to somebody who may well be affected by these changes. I'm reading from a charity called the suicide refugee supposed network in relation to a gentleman here and his wife and they both street homes.
Now the home officer told us that you've been granted permission to stay in the United Kingdom. >> You are still required to leave the property no later than 12 noon. That's uh 2 days time which is the date given in the attached notice to quit.
So you have less than a month to find somewhere to stay. Homeless. >> Homeless.
>> Yeah, they're going homeless. They have no any choice. >> Good thing you have some security because you're granted asylum.
But at exactly that point, you suddenly have nowhere to live. >> And they will come here. They will being supported with, for example, tent.
>> Well, choose your political issue. And there's always a gap between how it's talked about by politicians and the media for that matter and what actually happens. And the sort of gap between the rhetoric and the reality here just hits you straight away.
It's vast, isn't it? >> And I'm just really struck by the fact that people's needs are as basic on your list as needing sleeping bag. >> Yeah.
>> Can I ask you another one? If Nigel Farage walked in here, we both know what he'd say. He said, "Look at all these fighting age men.
" That's another one. >> What is that trying to do other than incite some sort of fear or racial hatred? A lot of the people that we see are married and have kids.
But it was maybe safer that if one person could escape that maybe it was the strongest, fittest person in that family. It feels as if nobody's really prepared to go actually we're the sixth richest country in the world and we've got our duty about treating people with dignity about giving them a fair chance of moving their lives forward if they're found to be refugees. >> So are your wife and kids here?
They're here and we are in a temporary accommodation now. >> You're at temporary accommodation and what did you kind of leave behind? >> So, uh to be honest, uh the situation in Sudan it's very you know it's scary and out of control.
We are expecting every day every day >> you will hear news someone of the family pass away is being killed and we still moving and we're doing our job and doing our work properly. Yeah. >> And looking ahead, what would you like your future to be like?
>> You need to do work also as well, you know, to be part of the community putting a lot of efforts and together UK we are handling the responsibility and we pushing ahead together in UK here. We don't want to be you know far away from the community. We need to >> qu cultures my kids they need to learn you know their accent.
They need, you know, to be part of them >> going sharing and participation. >> You'd like your kids to have a liver puddle accent. >> Yeah.
Now they're picking, they're picking nice accent. >> Monday night. >> I got to admire the spirit of people who come out on Monday night.
Carry on. >> It's a cue for sin. It >> is.
Yeah. What's going on over there? >> Yeah, >> it's a food queue, I think.
>> Is it really? >> Yeah, I think they're homeless people who who are there. >> It's a shame if they genuinely >> Some of them don't look >> We just came from a walk and saw what you're doing.
How long have you been doing this on Monday night? >> Five years. >> Five years.
>> Even double since last year. >> It's doubled since last year. >> So many different categories of homelessness now.
You okay? Come last night. Demanded last month's rent.
Would have said to him, "Listen, I'm a sanction so I didn't get last month's rent. " >> He said he got evicted for not paying service charge. >> Yeah.
Yeah. The service charge bill ran up to £1,000. How are you supposed to pay?
I think it worked out 20 pound a week every week for a year. And I was only on buttons. I was sanctioned for nearly 6 months.
Look, I've always come for money for you know, but he's always on the shoulder. >> I want to make a point. If you want to do something decent for us, tell them right the council these people are giving those tents.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Sleeping bags and then the council they're taking them away and making us sleeping doorways.
>> And that's happened to you a lot. Is it? >> Every week.
>> Wow. And what about getting a You need somewhere to live, right? You need a roof over your head.
>> Can't even go into that. That's not even worth going into >> cuz it just seems impossible. >> Okay.
>> Is it really? It shouldn't be though. >> I know what I'm saying.
Hey, I've got more chance of sleeping in that bed there. >> Look, film that. >> One more chance of getting in bed there.
>> They'll just put it in a skip with all that person's belongings. And what we say is that's that's fine. You want to make the city, but before you take someone's life away from them, give them give them something else.
Give them a room. I mean, look at all that empty. They fit all the homeless there.
Yeah, look at that. >> That's empty. All that all that's empty.
>> We don't get involved in religion, anything like that or immigrants, migrants, you can understand they're in the queue and there and they're asking me, Neil, why are the hotels? And I say, I'm not the government. I'm just some rough ass, you know.
Sorry. I'm just some My dad used to say this country will make me make your latest and I'd say no no but you laugh going I I want to answer them and I want to say I I believe in helping the migrants the immigrants whatever but you know when when you see a queue like that it makes you it does question everything you believe in doesn't it help everyone help everyone we don't judge do we I'm not here to judge >> that sums up the political choice here between division and blaming outsiders or trying to stick to the idea that everyone affected by the housing crisis deserves help. >> Everyone's scared.
Everyone wants a stable home, but housing's a unifying issue. Like it's we all feel it. >> In a community lerette where even the washing machines have names.
We've met some local housing campaigners trying to bring people together to fight for more social housing. >> Help stands for >> how's everyone in Liverpool properly. >> Tell me why everyone is such an important word.
Everyone's important because it means everyone. Doesn't matter if you were born here. Doesn't matter how long you've lived here.
>> No, I haven't got a house because this person over here. It's only just arrived here has got one. Do you hear those things a lot?
>> A lot. I mean, that's what a lot of people are saying now, but even even years ago is people going, "Oh, if I was pregnant, I could get somewhere. If I had mental health problems, a drug problem, people always tried to blame the wrong groups of people.
It's it's actually the governments who need to like provide this social housing. " >> You both became involved with it via sort of direct experience. Yeah, spent years and years living in a in a dangerous property.
It was like fire hazards everywhere. There was mold, damp, really affected me health. I was on the waiting list, but it was like I was never going to get a social home that way.
Eventually signed up to part of a local housing cooperative, pay a social rent there. Everything's up to standards and that was when I sort of got more involved in the campaigning cuz I was thinking, why can't everyone have this? >> And how do you think Liverpool would feel different if there was >> more or enough social housing?
The community would be amazing. Like if people had a stable, secure home, we would all be able to function. Like Maslo's hierarchy, the b the basic one like if we have that, we would actually be able to thrive.
>> So a few people acquaintances and I see the messages on Facebook who blame asylum seekers for taking the social housing. If it wasn't for these people coming over on the boats, you'd get your house. And that upsets me immensely because that is not right.
Stability, affordability, dignity, that's all I want. So I'm asking you to stand up for families like mine. Stand up for the millions of us across the country cuz we can't wait any longer.
[Applause] Wow. I'm so proud of myself actually to be able and sit there because I've kept it all. I didn't want to sort of go out there with it public, you know, but now it's time to have a voice.
It's time to be the voice.
