Safe as Houses

'A timely and important book, exposing how private profit and reckless privatisation have caused unspeakable tragedies to social housing in this country.' David Lammy MP'This is an intricately researched, powerfully written, dramatic and sometimes painful analysis of how private interests have denatured social housing, always tethered to the experiences of the people who live in it. It's a brilliant, insightful and very human study.'Zoe Williams, Guardian journalist 'Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the outsourcing - for which read privatisation - of social housing over the last 30 years. Hodkinson explains how this, above all, is the root cause of the Grenfell Fire and exposes how it is just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening to housing in the UK.' Anna Minton, Reader in Architecture at the University of East London and author of Big Capital: Who is London for? 'A searing exposé of the policy choices which made Grenfell 'a disaster foretold'. Combining forensic detail and righteous anger, he describes the multi-faceted attack on public housing and its ethos which underlay this man-made tragedy - privatisation and reliance on a profit-driven private sector, deregulation, and the marginalisation of tenants' voices and interests.' John Boughton, author of Municipal Dreams:The Rise and Fall of Council Housing 'This is a hugely important and powerful book, essential reading for scholars, campaigners, policy makers, or anyone with an interest in housing provision.' Pilgrim Tucker, housing campaigner and community organiser As the tragedy of the Grenfell tower fire has slowly revealed a shadowy background of outsourcing, private finance initiatives and a council turning a blind eye to health and safety concerns, many questions need answers. Stuart Hodkinson has those answers. He has worked for the last decade with residents groups in council regeneration projects across London. As residents have been shifted out of 60s and 70s social housing to make way for higher rent paying newcomers, they have been promised a higher quality of housing. Councils have passed the responsibility for this housing to private consortia who amazingly have been allowed to self-regulate on quality and safety. Residents have been ignored for years on this and only now are we hearing the truth. Hodkinson weaves together his research on PFIs, regulation and resident action to tell the whole story of how Grenfell happened and how it could easily happen again.