by greum maol stevenson & daishin stephenson
Two years ago, this blog discussed how an organisation called Street Change Glasgow was treating people in poverty with contempt. Before publishing the piece, we emailed them our concerns, but they did not respond.
In response to the questions I sent Glasgow Housing Association (soon to be renamed Wheatley Homes Glasgow), I received the following letter today. Decide for yourself how many of the questions it answers.
A week ago today, Glasgow Housing Association invited Wyndford residents to a “drop-in session” at the Maryhill Hub, to “have your say on GHA’s exciting new regeneration plans.” As those plans involve the demolition of more than 600 homes, and GHA’s Locality Housing Director, Linzi Heggie, has already admitted that the demolition will go ahead no matter what tenants say, some tenants of those homes were there with a list of questions.
In this post, I wrote about Living Rent’s lack of action concerning the transphobia of a member of its staff, Nick Durie, and of the coup that removed Sam Sharp from his position as secretary of the WTU, followed by resignations of members that left only homeowners on the committee of a tenants’s union.
Some good news: Nick Durie is no longer employed by Living Rent, which has suspended the WTU committee from activity pending an investigation.
#LivingRentGlasgow #NickDurie #EllenorHutson #transphobia #bigotry #WyndfordTenantsUnion #SamSharp #ScottishBlogs
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In response to yesterday’s post, a friend wrote to me: “I have been thinking about this a lot and I have been coming closer to the side of offering compassion to people with views I don't agree with. It's definitely a luxury to do this as I am largely unaffected by the views they have, but it is my understanding that these views are often inherited and come from a place of ignorance and fear. Does defeating someone not just leave them with a resentment which they will want to avenge?”
This article by Connor Beaton on Living Rent’s failure to address a bigoted faction of its staff speaks for me.
I have had several conversations with people who, when I argue that it is morally indefensible to use Twttr, respond by saying, “But that’s where people are.” Most of the people who say that are writers trying to promote their books on there, and they seem not to realise that if social media helped sell books, they would be among the world’s bestselling authors, which, to make an enormous understatement, they are not.
The cognitive dissonance continues. Glasgow Live reports that Scotland may have no available hospital beds in a matter of days, that new restrictions are “inevitable”, and that Glasgow has 34 covid hotspots.
Yesterday, Linzi Heggie, Locality Housing Director at Glasgow Housing Association, admitted that the “consultation” with tenants as to whether the Wyndford high flats should be demolished will make no difference to the outcome.