Minutes of Democafe meeting, Saturday 22nd August 2015 held from 2pm to 4pm at The Forge, Delancey Street, Camden NW1 7NL

Present:  Denise, Trevor, Janos, Mary (notes)
Apologies: Michael, Alan, Eddie, Carol, James, Sara.  Denise apologised for the next three (or four) weeks, as she will be abroad and at the Permaculture Convergence.

Minutes of the meeting held on: Sat 15th August 2015

Update: We briefly discussed the problem of people being sanctioned and losing their benefits, the Labour Party leadership election, and the Chilcott Report.

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HOUSING
We welcomed Michael Mulvey’s second draft of Housing: a Place to Live,  which expands on the first draft, and draws on experiences quoted in the Guardian article “Generation Rent”
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/22/pwc-report-generation-rent-to-grow-over-next-decade.
Michael’s paper describes the current situation, and proposes explanations for how we got here, and a range of solutions, and finally compares the UK situation with what’s happening elsewhere in Europe.
See also:  http://www.generationrent.org and http://generation-rent.com and the latest from the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/aug/22/renters-fight-rogue-landlords-rhiannon-lucy-cosslett
We began to go through Michael’s paper in detail, with Trevor Griffiths present, but ran out of time, and those present agreed to the idea of circulating it for comment to the discussion list, so that everyone in the network will be able to give it consideration and send feedback.

Meanwhile a google search for “housing campaigns”
yielded the following links:

• Shelter (the housing and homeless charity):
http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns

• National Housing Federation (the voice of housing associations):
https://www.housing.org.uk/get-involved/

• Priced Out (the campaign for affordable house prices):
http://www.pricedout.org.uk

• Inside Housing (news, views & jobs in social housing):
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/campaigns

• Defend Council Housing (hands off our homes):
http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/

• Homes for Britain (can you end the housing crisis within a generation?)
http://homesforbritain.org.uk

• Housing Justice (end the housing crisis):
http://www.housingjustice.org.uk/pages/campaigns.html

• Homes from Empty Homes:
http://www.emptyhomes.com/what-we-do-2/campaign-demands/

• Unite (the union):
http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/communitymembership/our-campaigns/housing-is-a-human-right/

• Speye Joe (Welfarewrites):
https://speye.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/why-housing-campaigns-are-flogging-a-dead-house/

• plus a Google Map of Housing Campaign:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zFuqvrQCgNdM.kVkO1xRLk01I
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Expanding the DemoCafe project.
Janos is helping to set up a DemoCafe in Uxbridge and understood that the website and mailing list can be adopted to support both groups. Regular attendees can continue to contact each other via group@democafe.uk, whilst the whole list can be contacted via discuss@democafe.uk, which Sara moderates.

MF/mf