THE SOCIAL LEGACY OF GRENFELL: AN AGENDA FOR CHANGE SUMMARY
e Grenfell Tower fire was a critical moment in both local and national life. It shone a spotlight on a series of issues that we were dimly aware of, and yet oen ignored. e Public Inquiry is vital, but if all we do is address issues of fire safety and building regulation, we will have missed a pivotal moment. Grenfell is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to look at what might be wrong with our social fabric and try to fix it. We need to talk about the Social Legacy of Grenfell.
is report emerges from a series of conversations hosted by the Bishop of Kensington The Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin with local residents, community groups, faith leaders, activists and others towards the Bishop of Kensington end of 2018 and into early 2019. It seeks to identify an agenda for change within our society which will be a lasting and fitting legacy to those who tragically lost their lives at Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017. e report focuses on identifying the issues, rather than providing the solutions, and highlighting the factors which should be given close attention in coming years. ose issues are:
RENEWING DEMOCRACY: finding ways to enable people, especially in more deprived areas, to have more of a say in issues that directly affect their lives.
HUMANISING WELFARE: the need for culture change in local Councils and service providers, ensuring that the provision of support services of whatever kind, is made more relational and accessible.
BECOMING NEIGHBOURS: providing means and motivation in urban areas in particular, for interaction between different groups divided by income, ethnicity, or class.
PROVIDING HOMES: ensuring that social housing is given the priority it deserves and looked aer well, seeing housing less as a financial asset and more as a secure place for home, shelter and community.
NOTICING FAITH: Recognising the importance of local community organisations as vital to social cohesion, including faith communities.
2 INTRODUCTION
e Grenfell Tower fire was a seismic moment in both ocall and national life. Although it had a profound and lasting impact on the North Kensington community in which it happened, its repercussions were felt far and wide. In the days aer the fire, people came from all over the country to offer help and donate gis, and media from across the world descended on the area, asking how such a disaster could happen in a sophisticated, modern, western European city such as London. In the weeks that followed, discussion raged over questions which the fire seemed to highlight: social inequality, poverty, immigration, housing, the role of local and national government and so on. It seemed that for a brief moment, the Grenfell Tower fire shone a spotlight on a whole series of social issues that we were all dimly aware of, and yet oen ignored. Aonce-in-a-generationopportunity Grenfell is a once-in-a- generation opportunity Since that terrible night, those who died have been identified, families have mourned, to look at what might the local community has grieved and tried to come to terms with what happened. be wrong with our social Discussion has flowed over what might need to change in North Kensington, with a fabric and try to fix it. whole ra of consultation exercises taking place by various agencies. e Public We need to talk about Inquiry has also met for Phase 1 of its investigations, and there is now a long pause the Social Legacy before Phase 2 begins. of Grenfell e Inquiry was set up to determine “exactly what happened on 14th June 2017, why it happened, and what can be done to stop something similar happening again.” In other words, its focus is on the decisions and factors that led to the fire, and its conclusions will presumably relate to the important themes of fire safety, building regulations, maintenance of public housing, the use of materials and so on. is is surely right and proper. To extend the scope of the Inquiry to broader social issues would risk making what is already a long and complex task even longer and more complex. Yet if all that we do is to think about fire safety and building regulations, If all that we do is we will have missed a vital opportunity. to think about fire safety and building In an episode in the gospels, Jesus was once asked a question about a tower that had regulations, we will collapsed in the city of Jerusalem, leading to the deaths of a large number of people. have missed a He was asked if this meant that this was some kind of judgment on those who had died. vital opportunity He answered No: those who died were no better or worse than anyone else, but he then added one sharp warning: “but unless you change, you also will perish.” In other words, when such an event happens, it can serve as a call for a kind of national repentance, a close look at the way we live together, the kind of self-examination that can lead to significant change for the better. And if we miss that opportunity we are in trouble.
We owe it to those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire to do this work of self- examination. Many people in the North Kensington community feel that the media interest has now moved on to other things, while they still struggle with the trauma of that night and its aermath. Grenfell is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to look at what might be wrong with our social fabric and try to fix it. We need to talk about the Social Legacy of Grenfell.
As Bishop of Kensington, I became involved in the response to the fire on the day itself, in subsequent days and weeks, and in the National Memorial Service commemorating victims of the fire at St Paul’s Cathedral on the 14 December 2017. 3 Since then I have remained in touch with many of the local community groups as well as some of the people and families most closely affected by the tragedy. Between October 2018 and February 2019, I convened a series of conversations with people who had been intimately involved with the fire and itsaermath, many of whom I had come to know over the past couple of years. I met with local community group leaders, survivors from the Tower, the bereaved, nearby residents, groups representing local migrant communities, faith leaders, community activists, volunteers, local Councillors and Council employees, mental health providers and many more. I deliberately did not go beyond that to the many commentators who have looked in from outside, because this was an attempt to listen closely to those who have been intimately involved in the local community which had been so deeply impacted by the fire.
I went into each conversation with two main questions in mind: what are the key underlying social factors that led to the Grenfell Tower fire; and, what are the main long-term social changes people would like to see as a result of Grenfell? I tried not to direct the conversations, but to allow them to flow wherever people wanted to go. My task, and that of my colleagues Tom Jackson and Hannah Gordon who expertly helped with organising them, was to try to listen, to reflect on what I heard, identify the key themes and then to try to present that to a wider audience. is report is the outcome of those conversations, and indeed many more before and since. Its main aim is not to offer solutions, a blueprint for a better society (although at points, particular suggestions for practical action will be suggested) but to identify priorities for us all, whether government, the voluntary sector, statutory agencies, the media or ordinary citizens, to address over the coming years. It focusses on five themes that repeatedly seemed to come up as we talked during those winter months.
I am immensely grateful for all those who took part in these conversations and hope they feel that this reflects the concerns and viewpoints they represented. One thing I have come to admire is the strength and determination of the local community of North Kensington and its cohesiveness, even in the most trying of circumstances. is report comes not with the authority of any particular local group, and I have deliberately kept anonymous the different voices quoted – it is simply my account of what I heard and my reflections on it. My hope is that it identifies a programme and agenda for change within our society which will be a lasting and fitting legacy to those who tragically lost their lives at Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017.
4 ReNewINgDeMOCRACY
One note that sounded more than any other was the voice of a community that felt that no-one had been listening. Again and again, we heard that local people felt excluded from decisions that affected the details of their lives. As one participant put it: “the key issue at Grenfell is not feeling heard”, or as another said: “fundamentally people have no say – the local authority doesn’t appear to trust or understand the local people and so instead simply make decisions on their behalf.” e attitude of the Council and local government in general was oen experienced as paternalistic and patronising, with “a lack of genuine listening and understanding.” is sense of alienation from power, a disconnect between people who lived in the area around Grenfell Tower and those who were making decisions about their lives is perhaps reminiscent of the debate over Brexit and the way in which it also shone a light on many parts of the nation who felt powerless to change their lives and a subsequent The key issue desire to ‘take back control’ – a slogan that perhaps caught the zeitgeist more at Grenfell is effectively than its authors ever imagined. It has led to a breakdown of trust in not feeling heard authority, which goes back a long way in local memory. Having also spoken to and come to know representatives of the Council, both elected members and those employed by it, it is not as simple as saying that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) is made up of bad people deliberately seeking to ignore the local community. I have oen heard Council representatives expressing a desire to connect with the community, yet also striking a note of desperation in knowing how to do that effectively. Something in our political and local systems seems to prevent that happening, leading to a dangerous sense of isolation and disaffection. As one person put it: “e sense of resentment and hopelessness is magnified when the people with the task of representing you don’t appear to listen.” Consultation One issue that came up repeatedly was consultation and how it happens. One participant summed it up like this: “ere has been an exhausting amount of consultation but not one good example of effective consultation.” ere has certainly Rather than listening been no shortage of attempts to consult with local people. At one count there were first to experts nine official consultation exercises happening in the local area. Yet too oen people on housing policy, felt that the way it was done was ineffective. Sometimes it simply seemed a pretence: economists or “at present, consultation appears to be a tick-box exercise. ose initiating the developers, why not consultation already know the answers they want to hear and therefore aren’t there to listen first to those genuinely listen.” One note oen struck was how the loudest voices oen get heard, who actually live in and yet they are oen not the most significant voices that need attention. ose who social housing? are most vulnerable oen remain quiet and their voices are not heard, and a way needs to be found to enable that speaking and listening to take place. “Good consultation starts with a blank page” said one person, and oen discussion continued with the observation that consultation cannot be a one-off exercise so that the box can be ticked that ‘the local community has been consulted’ but needs a longer-term investment of relationship building, that develops trust and builds consensus. As the political theologian Luke Bretherton puts it: “democracy takes time.”
In the lead up to the EU referendum, Michael Gove said that “I think the people in this country have had enough of experts.” He was perhaps too quick to dismiss the value of people who have studied their subject well and are a valuable source of
5 wisdom. Yet there is a sense in which he had a point. When it comes to social housing, for example, rather than listening first to experts on housing policy, economists or developers, why not listen first to those who actually live in social housing? Surely their voice is vital in developing good effective housing policy in future? One positive example noted in our conversations was the voice gained by Grenfell United, the main group representing the bereaved and survivors. is is a group of people that have found their voice. Government ministers have at times consulted them about housing policy, although change is frustratingly slow. e hope is that, as the recent Shelter report argued, a new forum for residents of social housing is established which enables them to have a greater say on issues that affect their homes. ere is still much work to be done to achieve this objective. Representation Party Politics seemed to many to be an obstacle rather than a help to this process. One view expressed was that to get elected as a local Councillor, you need to become a member of one of the main political parties, become known in that party, lobby for support, go through the selection process to be able to stand for election and so on – a long and laborious process. As a result, many local people who might be excellent community voices, particularly from immigrant communities who don’t have a long history with our party system, feel daunted by the prospect and don’t even try. Another voice within the Council itself argued that the polarisation of party politics hindered good community change – scoring points against the other side sometimes seemed more important than getting effective change happening, and in the political quarrels, the genuine voices of local people go unheard. The idea that the role of government A constant plea was for some form of empowerment of local people, both to enable is not to make decisions their voices to be heard and also to be active agents in their own lives, having a feeling for those ‘lower down’ of involvement and choice in the decisions that affect them. While the usual process the social scale, was to expect the Council to consult with local people, the prospect was raised of but to enable, turning that around – what if local people were consulting with the Council, or those as far as possible with responsibility for delivery, to see how best to achieve that. Such a suggestion and appropriate, obviously raises the question of how a community is enabled to discern and to speak smaller, more local its own mind. Community Organising as a well-developed practice is one way to decision-making make this happen, where different faith, community and voluntary organisations come together at a grass roots level to help articulate local community feeling and advocate for change. It is a way of counterbalancing the market as the only factor in decision-making, so that people have a say on the issues that affect them, and ensuring that relationships of trust stand at the core of our social life. One participant put it like this:
Communities should be working out what they want and then consulting the Council about how best to achieve this. In order to give the power back to the community, the Council must see their role as facilitators rather than custodians. e current structures and mechanisms are not conducive to this… If you devolve decision making to the local level and then aggregate up to the Council you will get a much better sense of what is needed.
is is the principle of subsidiarity: the idea that the role of government is not to make decisions for those ‘lower down’ the social scale, but to enable, as far as possible and appropriate, smaller, more local decision-making. e role of the
6 State is not to dispense decisions from on high but to make possible a properly local democratic culture where people find the dignity of being involved in the decisions that affect their lives.
One difficulty voiced about this kind of locally based decision making was the way in which meetings can be taken over by unrepresentative, strident voices, leaving more measured, quieter voices unheard or reluctant to take part in what can become tense and angry exchanges. One suggestion on how to manage this might be the creation of an overarching, neutral, locally-based authority which has the responsibility of managing the process of meetings, to put in place safeguards which enable them to become more constructive. Agency Perhaps the main plea in all this was for a sense of Agency. Civil society works best where people genuinely feel they have a stake and a say in it, where they feel they can influence the decisions that affect their day-to-day lives and the issues that directly affect their families, friends and neighbours. is needs profound culture change within our public organisations, from a paternalistic assumption that those in power know what others need, to a more devolved form of democratic life. Finding better modes of representation, hearing the voices of those who currently have felt excluded through a more decentralised and locally-based democratic process is vital for the future of our society if it is to thrive into the future.
Civil society works best where people genuinely feel they have a stake and a say in it, where they feel they an influence the decisions that affect their day-to-day lives
7 HUMANISINgwelfARe
Beyond enabling community voices to be heard, there is something else: an urgent need to help those who provide services, whether housing, healthcare or urgent charity to connect more effectively with the communities and the people they are trying to engage with. Amorepersonalapproach Repeatedly, the experience was recounted of how the provision of welfare to a vulnerable and hurting community oen felt disabling and condescending. Getting assistance aer the fire oen meant turning up to an impersonal office, waiting in a queue and asking for help. As one person told me “it made me feel like a beggar asking for bread.” As another put it: “we didn’t want money, we just wanted to know that we were understood.”
At the time of the fire, intended in the most generous way, donations poured in from all over the country – clothing, bedding, shoes, nappies, food, leaving many local churches, mosques and community centres heaving with gis. Temporary beds were set up in sports centres and community spaces. Yet the vast majority of this was not “We didn’t want money, really needed by survivors and evacuees from the local area. Many emergency beds we just wanted to remained empty because people le homeless by the fire preferred to stay with know that we friends or family. Most of it represented the need of people to help rather than the were understood.” need of people who were affected, and many of the donations were eventually sold in charity shops.
Except in the most dire of circumstances, no-one likes to feel like the recipient of charity. And yet in the rush to help the victims, the way in which that help was offered, oen pre-packaged, and unrelated to the actual needs of people, le them as passive recipients rather than active agents in the process of rebuilding their lives.
More generally, people oen spoke about how getting help on housing repairs, benefits, healthcare or financial advice, always seemed a struggle.Emails went unanswered, waiting lists were too long, and the help offered impersonal. ere are exceptions of course and many examples of excellent provision of welfare, yet that oen seemed the exception rather than the rule. Distrust of the local Council had long been an issue in the locality, was oen remarked on in the weeks and months aer the fire, and part of the reason for that is the increasing tendency for Councils like RBKC to sub-contract services to other providers. Commissioning other organisations to provide services may be an effective way to deliver them, but it has the unfortunate effect of make the Council itself feel remote, distant and anonymous. Another factor noted was that over 90% of those who work for the Council do not actually live in RBKC, which made it less likely that they would know local conditions intimately and be able to address them from within rather than as visitors from a distance. Respectingdignity One key aspect is giving the recipients of welfare a genuine sense of dignity and worth. e danger is to think of those suffering as a result of a tragedy like Grenfell, or indeed those in any difficult circumstances, whether of their own or others’ making, just as recipients of assistance, or victims. en a cycle sets in – people who are treated as
8 victims can feel victimised, and become passive and perhaps even resentful about their treatment. And as a result they do not get the help that is available.
For example, we were told how when mental health advice was initially offered, it was difficult to get much traction. I remember going to community meetings where voices were heard complaining that no-one had offered any help to struggling people, while knowing the area was awash with people trying to offer such help. Again there was a disconnect between offers of support and those who needed it. Men in particular found it hard to admit the need for help with mental health, as well as people from some ethnic or religious communities who felt the help offered did not align with their values or self-perception.
A different approach was needed. As one healthcare provider said: “If you empower people who are in a position of weakness, they are agents of their own healing. ere was a sense of re-empowerment of community which felt disempowered and disregarded beforehand.” Again the theme is agency – finding a way for people to feel they have a stake, a part in the decisions that affect their lives. Offeringchoice With over 200 households needing rehousing aer the fire, RBKC set about the task of finding them new homes. A sum of money was set aside and a large number of housing units bought, with a complex system produced to enable people to apply for the homes they wanted. e difficulty was that the homes on offer were not always tailored to the needs of the particular families. If you had a disabled grandmother, a debilitating illness, a large number of children or a special needs child, those factors conditioned the choice of house you might be interested in, and there wasn’t always the house you needed in the stock available in the location you wanted to live in. Perhaps a better approach would have been to set a general budget for each family, allocate a case worker to work with the family and estate agents to find the house “If you empower each household needed. Aer all, anyone buying a house prefers a sense of choice people who are in a rather than being limited to a smaller number of options. is was compounded position of weakness, by the perception oen voiced in the media of the survivors being choosy. e they are agents of impression given was that they should be grateful for any charity offered them, their own healing.” when the reality was that they had lost their homes through no fault of their own and really should have been given the same range of options as anyone else in their circumstance, if not more, given the trauma they had been through. It was an unfortunate example of help offered in ways that oen served to make people feel they should be the grateful, subservient objects of charity rather than active agents n their own lives.
In a discussion with providers of healthcare services, we heard a positive story of this kind of change in approach:
For a brief time aer the fire, it wasn’t about the money. e focus was instead on how we can engage with the community. Rather than ‘We have our services, now you come to us’ and focusing on meeting targets; we flipped the switch and gave up power to allow communities to shape practice for themselves. We changed from focusing on ‘What we are doing’ to ‘What would be useful, valuable and relational?’. I gave Resident Associations, groups of volunteers and churches the keys to our Day Centre building and
9 said, “Tell us what you need – feel free to use us or other people as you prefer.” Power was given to the community for them to lead and decide for themselves. Our services supported and encouraged them to talk about what the community might need with a hands-off approach.
Or as another person said, those looking to provide mental health services found they could not simply say ‘here is what we offer, come and get it if you want it’ – they had to be more innovative and imaginative in how they made their services available, “for instance being seen out and about on street corners, the appearance of ‘Well-Being Pop-Up Café’ stalls and NHS staff standing out with the voluntary sector in the community. e fact that we had to be more flexible in our approach and engage physically in the community brought huge benefits.” Relationshipsnottargets The other aspect of enabling a good connection between welfare provision and those at the receiving end is the need for this to be based as far as possible on relationships rather than targets. After the fire, numerous charities poured into the area, generously offering their assistance, yet time and again, the places local people went to find help was in the places where they already had established relationships – local community centres, GP surgeries, churches, mosques, legal advice centres – places that had been around for a long time and would be there long after the other offers of help had disappeared.
Another striking note was the frequency with which the word ‘family’ was mentioned. Families were one of the most crucial aspects in the process of healing from trauma. Families were oen seen as the basic building block of healthy community. Especially when they are networked with other families, they can provide a context in which young people can avoid some of the dangers of gang and peer culture, can learn how to create good relationships and build a sense of security. Obviously not all family life is healthy, but investment in ensuring the stability and cohesion of family units will make the ultimate welfare burden less onerous for the rest of society.
When we met with mental health providers, they described the journey they had been on from simply providing a service to giving active thought to how it might be received at the other end. Here was a group of professionals who had learnt they needed to be more focussed on building long-term relationships rather than meeting targets or ticking procurement boxes, or as one of them expressed it: “putting relational effectiveness before pure efficiency”. To give a wider example, one of our churches in another London borough ran a regular foodbank to which many of the more vulnerable people in the community came. A visit from a local Councillor led to the realisation that many of the people who were reluctant to access help at the Council offices were to be found right there in the church. So the Council started to send housing officers, benefit advisors, mental health ursesn and the like to the foodbank. Rather than waiting in a queue in a cold and sterile office for an appointment time with someone they did not know, conversations about housing, benefits or healthcare could happen in a familiar building over a cup of tea, or a warm meal, with children running around and the reassuring presence of the local vicar and well-known church staff around to help if there was a problem. is was a Council being imaginative in thinking how to enable people to access welfare in a healthy and positive way. It was welfare with a human face. 10 BeCOMINgNeIgHBOURS
Socialinequality One of the themes that the media noticed at the time of the fire and in our conversations was the extremes of social inequality in Kensington and Chelsea. is is a borough that contains some of the most expensive streets in the country as well as some of the most deprived wards in London. It was as if this particular locality showcased in one small geographical area, the inequalities of wealth and opportunity that are found across the country.
In our conversations, that sense of inequality was noticed in various ways. One was educational. In the borough, we were told, 48% of children are educated privately. The question at least Of the remainder, there are some excellent local state schools, and yet a note we needs to be asked heard oen was that in the league-table, results-oriented world of education, the whether allowing the successes of the higher achievers was celebrated while the lower achievers were given gap between the richest less attention. Another strand was racial. As one participant said: “It is five and a half and the poorest to grow times more likely for a black man to be stopped and searched by the Police, who use ever wider is good for the smell of cannabis to offer a justifiable cause. Meantime, the Kings Road is awash our social cohesion with primarily white people using cocaine, but this goes unchecked.” Another was housing, where the perception was that if you owned property you were able to get instant access to repairs and renovation, yet if you lived in social housing, it took an age before complaints were dealt with properly.
Variations in wealth, income, housing and education are bound to exist to some extent. Yet the extremes are rarely seen so close together as they are in Kensington. e question at least needs to be asked whether allowing the gap between the richest and the poorest to grow ever wider is good for our social cohesion. e problem is the social divide that oen creates, oen driven by fear, which is in turn driven by ignorance. It was noted by many people in our conversations how rarely people from the south of the Borough ventured north, leading to a widespread sense of ignorance about each other’s lives. We simply do not know our neighbours. Even in north Kensington itself, like many urban areas, there was a great sense of nostalgia for lost community: “there was a time when it seemed everybody knew everybody – growing up, you knew you had to behave on the bus because your mum’s friend was watching you.” Transience “People feel they are Stories abounded of people with roots in the area yet who had had to move out being pushed out because of increased property prices, or an inability to pay rising rents: and this has contributed to the breakdown “e lack of social housing is dividing communities and families in relationships as people are forced to relocate.” between people.”
“As properties have become more expensive, people don’t expect to be able to stay in the area.”
“People feel they are being pushed out and this has contributed to the breakdown in relationships between people.”
11 is has led to a strong sense of transience in urban life, with no-one staying around for long, few people putting down roots and investing in local community life and the resulting erosion of community cohesion. We need to find ways to make urban living more stable and long-term. People invest in a community when they think they are there to stay. Isolation Alongside economic reasons there are cultural ones too. In the words of one of the participants in our conversations: “People have stopped engaging with each other, becoming absorbed in their own lives or consumed with the routine of getting up, going to work and coming home.” A consumerist, libertarian, individualist society where freedom is understood to mean freedom to do as I choose as long as I don’t harm anyone else, renders my neighbour at best a limitation, or at worst a threat to my freedom. It does not give us reasons to care for one another, and as the sociologist “People have Richard Sennett puts it: “a regime which provides human beings no deep reasons to stopped engaging care about one another cannot long preserve its legitimacy.” with each other, becoming absorbed We learned that migrant communities are particularly vulnerable to this. ey can in their own lives oen feel isolated and hidden, cut off from others by language difficulties, casual or or consumed with the overt racism or other cultural factors. Many young people stay hidden in bedrooms, routine of getting up, playing computer games, reluctant to venture out because going out costs money, or going to work and due to real or perceived threats of violence, or lack of aspiration. When they do, the coming home.” visible extremes of wealth and the impossibility of ever aspiring to it in lawful ways lead some to simply try to take it for themselves, leading to a spiral of conviction and prison. In addition, tensions can exist not just between rich and poor, but between different migrant communities themselves, perhaps between older settled communities and newer ones, exacerbated by the high levels of unemployment, poverty and overcrowding locally.
As the book of Genesis puts it: ‘It is not good to be alone’. is sense of isolation in That brief taste of our cities, where we simply do not know our neighbours, and do not take the time togetherness that came to do so is bad for health, social cohesion and wellbeing in every sphere. as a result of the eneedforcommunity immediate tragedy In the immediate aermath of the fire, all the usual social barriers broke down as reminded people of people came out of the streets from all over London to do what they could to help. what they had been It wasn’t long before life returned to its usual individualised pattern, yet one of the missing and what was remarkable results of Grenfell has been the way in which community groups have desperately needed formed, people came together to hold vigils, organise street parties, or raise money. Volunteers have come from the south of the borough to get involved in life in the north, and people have become aware of the desperate need for community. It is as if that brief taste of togetherness that came as a result of the immediate tragedy reminded people of what they had been missing and what was desperately needed.
One person described the change this new perception worked in her: when she moved to a new flat, she made a point of knocking on the door of all her neighbours to introduce herself. A small gesture but the kind of thing that breaks the ice and begins to allow community and friendship to form.
Several people pointed to the role of local businesses and their potential for creating a stronger sense of community. If local businesses had a stronger sense of responsibility
12 for and rootedness in the communities they were located in, they could be valuable agents for change. Businesses that deliberately created opportunities for local residents, with a vision for local social impact rather than simply profit, would be important partners for a deeper sense of neighbourliness.
One of the legacies of Grenfell would be a renewed determination to increase our sense of being neighbours to each other, bound together by a common humanity, not just tolerating each other but needing each other. On one level it means small acts, asking questions, striking up conversations, making friendships, being curious about one another’s lives, even if we are divided by wealth, religion or ethnicity. On another level it needs to influence decisions about the availability of community spaces, places where people can come together to form community life, seeing homes not so much as castles to keep out intruders, but as places of hospitality for others, or part of a balanced life that ranges between time at home and time spent in more Good communities communal space that can feel like the home of a community. are made of good neighbours, who are ere is a fine line between the privacy that many people enjoy about city life and determined not to live the need for community. But the latter begins when we genuinely take an interest in isolated lives the lives of others rather than just our own: as one participant put it: “You know when we have a good community when we are disciplining each others’ kids!” Good communities are made of good neighbours, who are determined not to live isolated lives, free from any intrusion from others, but actively seek to prioritise relationships rather than independence.
Jesus Christ taught that at the core of being human is the call to ‘love your neighbour’. is is not so much an external command to be obeyed, but an indication of how we flourish as human beings. A society that respected difference, yet placed creating opportunities for social cohesion before personal independence, being neighbours before being individuals, would be a healthier and happier place in which to live. PROvIDINgHOMeS
Grenfell Tower was home to over 350 people. Yet somehow it had become a tinder box, vulnerable to a small fire in a Hotpoint fridge freezer on the 4th floor causing such a catastrophic destruction and loss of life. It is the task of the Public Inquiry to determine the exact causes of the fire and who was to blame for the decisions that led to the disaster, but the fire shone a light on the issue of social housing, how much of a priority it is, and what is commonly referred to as the housing crisis in Britain. Unaccountabilityofservices In our conversations, housing was a regular theme. e flats in Grenfell Tower were pleasant and roomy spaces. Most people enjoyed living there. Yet residents of the Many decided not to Tower and the adjacent walkways told stories of trying to get the Tenant Management put their heads above Organisation (TMO) to attend to repairs done to broken down lis, draughty window the parapet and frames, or hear concerns about the refurbishments that had taken place in 2016. complain out of fear ese attempts were oen frustrating, with long delays, emails unanswered and even of being labelled a accusations of anti-social behaviour. When people did complain they reported being trouble maker made to feel that they were the problem. Many decided not to put their heads above the parapet and complain out of fear of being labelled a trouble maker, being pushed down waiting lists, risking eviction or a rise in rent, meaning people just put up with poor conditions. Many felt the TMO to be a “broken model” and residents oen felt at the mercy of Housing Associations that were felt to be unaccountable. In the past, when there were local newspapers, these gave opportunities for some public accountability, but since their demise, there are few effective forums or outlets for complaints to be heard. Stigmatisation ose who lived in social housing such as Grenfell Tower oen felt stigmatised. One participant said: “e initial narrative was that the Tower was home to scores of illegal immigrants. It turned out there were one or two undocumented people, but the national narrative hasn’t readjusted to reflect this.” In the past there had been mixed housing, yet with the distance between the rich and the poor getting wider, social housing was effectively ‘ghettoised’. If you lived in social housing the feeling you got was that you must be a loser, as successful people all own their own homes or rent expensive flats or houses. We heard of one family that has been moved 13 times in 17 months, and the mother of the family is now struggling with depression. Housing in Britain has been seen more as a e line between modernisation of older properties and gentrification of a local area financial asset than a is a fine one to discern, but there was a repeated feeling in the conversations of a fear place for living, shelter of a secret agenda to force out poorer people to enable more expensive properties to and for hospitality be built, what one person called “managed decline of housing estates on valuable land in North Kensington. is has happened so gradually it has gone unnoticed.” Overcrowding Overcrowding was a key issue, whole families living in one bedroom flats, with nowhere for children to do homework. People who were close to the top of the waiting lists for social housing in North Kensington have been in uncertainty due to the understandable priority in re-housing Grenfell residents, leading to local tensions. A key analysis offered at the heart of this problem was that housing in Britain has
14 been seen more as a financial asset than a place for living, shelter and for hospitality. It is perhaps one of the results of living on a small crowded island where land is valuable, yet it is said that over 60% of our national net worth is tied up in housing – far more than most other countries. To secure ourselves for the future we tend to buy houses rather than putting that money into pensions or investing in local businesses. As a result, housing prices rise and in places where land is particularly valuable such as London, housing becomes truly unaffordable. While we all agree everyone should have access to adequate healthcare, education and a pension, our undervaluing of social housing suggests we don’t think the same is true of our basic need for shelter and a place to call home, a place we can assume is dry, warm, safe and secure.
We need to find a whole different approach to housing which sees it not primarily as a financial asset, but a home. It should be a shelter where people can feel safe, bring up families, and offer hospitality to others, thus creating the kind of healthy communities and neighbourhoods mentioned above. Abroadermixofhousing According to many that we spoke to, this would involve a huge investment in good quality social housing, both to provide homes to those who need them, but also to reduce the sense of stigma that oen attaches to those living on such estates. Incentives to fund and enable Community Land Trusts are one way to ensure good affordable housing, responsive to local needs, that brings agency back closer to the local level. Another is to seek a revision of the rules on affordable housing to make it more difficult for developers to avoid providing it and to make it more genuinely affordable than the current rule that it must be offered at 80% of market rate allows – It should be a shelter in most of London that still renders such property out of the range of most people. where people can feel Most London Boroughs have a pretty even spread of social housing, affordable homes safe, bring up families, and private housing. In RBKC, there was far less affordable housing than in other and offer hospitality boroughs. e result was a very polarised community with the extremes of wealth to others and poverty living so near each other mentioned above. Properly affordable housing would ensure that middle income people and families can live in areas such as Kensington & Chelsea and help bridge the gaps between extremes.
A community divided so starkly along economic lines is not healthy. We need to find ways to enable mixed housing neighbourhoods, where larger and smaller homes, affordable, social and private housing can be blended together better to enable a stronger sense of community to emerge.
15 vAlUINgfAITH
One of the stories that was noticed repeatedly at the time of the fire was the role that There was a faith faith communities played. Churches and mosques were among the vital first dimension to the responders on the night of the fire, opening their doors and making available space, tragedy” immediate support and respite in the crucial early hours and days aer the fire. Religious buildings became emergency relief depots, places for people to find a shoulder to cry on, centres for co-ordinating volunteer help. As one faith leader remarked “there was a faith dimension to the tragedy”. North Kensington is quite a religious place, with many faith communities present, oen with immigrant majorities. Many of those who died were Muslims and some were Christians of different denominations. People needed the space to mourn and lament, and oen found such space in the many services, shrines and multi-faith vigils that were offered in the days and weeks aer the fire and of course through the National Memorial Service at St Paul’s Cathedral and on the one-year anniversary in June 2018. Meltingpots It is significant that three of the main spaces used for public meetings aer the fire were St Clement’s Church, Notting Hill Methodist Church and the al Manaar Muslim Cultural Centre. One participant in the conversations noticed how when meetings were switched from Notting Hill Methodist Church (which was local, familiar and seen as politically neutral space) to the Town Hall, attendance and participation Churches and other dropped, and they became full of representatives of the local voluntary sector rather places of worship are than residents. more successful than any other social settings e role of faith communities as melting pots, bringing together people who would at bringing people of never usually cross paths was oen noticed. In churches and other similar different backgrounds communities, people of diverse ethnicities, income brackets, class and age can come together together in a way that happens in few other places in Britain today. is confirmed the analysis of a report by the Social Integration Commission in 2014, that churches and other places of worship are more successful than any other social settings at bringing people of different backgrounds together, well ahead of gatherings such as parties, meetings, weddings or venues such as pubs and clubs. Otherlocalcommunitygroups If we take ‘faith’ as a broader category, Local community groups, motivated by a commitment to and faith in local community life, such as the Harrow Club, the Rugby Portobello Trust and the Clement James centre (closely allied to St Clement and St James Church) played a particularly important role in the response to the fire and have continued to be at the very heart of community response. ese, alongside the faith communities, are examples of the kind of local bodies that are critical for social cohesion and co-ordination. While the creeping individualism of a globalised consumerist world can seem to suggest that there is just the individual, the market The existence of and the State, the existence of these ‘intermediate institutions’ in between are vital for these ‘intermediate healthy community life and need to be seen as such, rather than by-passed in favour institutions’ in between of statutory services. are vital for healthy community life Faith leaders recognised that the tragedy had led to closer friendships and collaboration among them. ey also noticed the benefits that had omec from the willingness to take
16 risks and bringing people together, such as in arranging the Memorial Service at St Paul’s Cathedral, at a time when emotions were still raw and feelings running high. “The potential that faith Faith leaders has been willing to work together and with the local community to help communities have is enable an event that marked the loss of those who had died, celebrated the local under-recognised and community and look to the future with the hope that faith can bring. yet they tend to be trusted by the Resourcingcommunitygroups community.” Yet such groups can struggle to get support and funding. One participant said this: “e potential that faith communities have is under-recognised and yet they tend to be trusted by the community. Yet Councils oen have a degree of suspicion towards faith groups, concerned that they may have a subversive agenda.” Sometimes that fear comes from suspicion of a proselytising agenda, or religiously-motivated views that don’t chime with secular assumptions. However a bias against faith or the insistence that faith groups shed their own identity and convictions while secular groups do not have to, risks missing the great benefits that faith groups can bring to the task of social integration. At other times that suspicion is of ‘amateurs’ trying to intervene instead of the ‘professionals’. Yet if the ‘amateurs’ have the relationships and the ‘professionals’ have the skills, surely positive partnerships between them can deliver local representation and the co-ordinating of community voices much better.
People of faith do not have a monopoly on goodness. People of all faiths and none were involved in impressive self-sacrificial action to support those affected by the Local community Grenfell Tower. Faith communities have work to do in becoming more accessible groups, faith and welcoming to those who do not yet belong. Yet local community groups, faith communities, and communities, and churches in particular have for centuries provided, and still churches in particular provide an important space for social cohesion and the cultivation of habits of have for centuries community building, that we allow to fade at our peril. Much is spoken about the provided, and still decline of the Church today. Some of that is due to the fading of belief, but much is provide an important also due to the fact that we do less together. We go to the cinema less oen than we space for social used to. We tend to drink at home rather than in pubs, which have been closing at a cohesion and the steeper rate than churches in recent years. If we do not act to support churches, other cultivation of habits of faith communities and community groups, we will lose a valuable source of social community building capital that holds our society together. CONClUSION
Many have noticed how local and political debate in our nation is becoming more polarised and angry. In a very divided society, Grenfell has much to teach us about the importance of (and steps towards) a more united and compassionate society.
Imagine a renewed approach to democracy, a stronger sense of agency, so that everyone felt they had more stake in their local neighbourhood, and a say in the decisions that affect them. Imagine a new approach to welfare that worked out not just what to offer, but how those who receive it can themselves shape the offer and receive it in a way that gives dignity.
Imagine a greater sense of neighbourhood in our communities, where people had the spaces and the motivation to meet and encounter each other across social divides. Imagine a new approach to housing that enabled decent homes for all, space to live and thrive and welcome others. Imagine a greater recognised role for local faith and community groups, and the valuable work they do in providing social cohesion. Renewing democracy, humanising welfare, becoming neighbours, providing homes and valuing faith would go a long way towards a renewed Britain that works well for all its citizens and offers the dignity and opportunity to thrive together that makes us fully human.
e Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin Bishop of Kensington
“This report clearly identifies the key factors that the Grenfell Tower fire and its response highlight for the wider community.” Mike Long, Minister, Notting Hill Methodist Church
“This is a very diagnostic and informative analysis of the Grenfell tragedy, which is crucial for all to understand, as we deal with the aftermath of that tragedy.” Abdurahman Sayed, Al Manaar Cultural Centre
“This report provides clear and positive examples of how we might empower communities, ensure that people play a part in the decisions that affect them and how we can support each other.” Clare Richards, CEO Clement James Centre
“This is an excellent paper. It is a unique and honest look into how Grenfell has created a ripple effect in time. Society can truly turn the Grenfell tragedy into a positive movement that forces people to step back from their day to day lives and take note of the issues that could benefit everyone.” Shahin Sadafi, former Chair of Grenfell United
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