Priced Out: Life on the Edge of Regeneration

Tenant: I’m one of the lucky ones apparently. I'm in social housing, a flagship block of the new council housing built in my borough. The mayor came and opened the block, cut the ribbon and everything. Mayor: I declare this flagship block of social housing open!  Tenant: The day we moved in we were so excited, we'd waited for years and then to get the offer it felt like a dream come true. That first night we drank prosecco out of mugs and watched ‘Homes Under The Hammer’ together. A few days later there was a bit of an issue with the leak from upstairs. We noticed this steady drop coming through the ceiling, minor teething problems we assumed. I popped upstairs, introduced myself to my neighbour and asked if maybe her bath had overflowed or if the shower was on. Neighbour: No we haven't been using the shower.  Tenant: It was I guess what you'd call a hint of what was to come.  Every one of us tenants in this block has an issue. Damp, leaks, floods, mould, never-ending repair issues and although this is a brand new block it was never the council's problem. We had inspectors visit and tell me the damp was my fault. It took two years for the council to acknowledge that it was down to poor building architecture and shoddy building work. Then after that it was problems with the heating, hot water, it goes on and off. It's been over three years of not having proper heating or hot water.  Every day I'm on the phone to the council. Council Phone line: Your call is important to us, please continue to hold.  Tenant: You sit on hold for hours. There's times where you wait an hour and a half to speak to them and then as soon as it's connected the call just drops. If you do get through you've got those that are understanding but you also have those that don't care at all or you have the ones that are not fully trained and they send the wrong contractor then you have to call them again. You have to explain to them that they've sent out the wrong engineer and they get annoyed because you're telling them how to do their job or they blame us - say oh you've not paid for your electricity. When it's not that and you know you just think - oh god, I mean, how many times do I have to explain? It's 10 steps forwards but 20 steps back. You're back to square one. This is turning into a full-time job. If I'm not reporting repairs I'm chasing repairs or waiting in for them to come and do repairs. I have to stay in for the contractors. I have to cancel hospital appointments, GP appointments. I can't go out and grab some groceries. I can't risk it in case they turn up when I'm not in.  And all this while when the hot water isn't working my daughter is missing out on school because she doesn't want to go in if she's been unable to shower or wash her hair.  It's impacted on my health condition. I need to be able to wash. Years of this just wears you down. It makes you feel inhuman and I know people say we're lucky to have social housing. You know what? We do feel lucky but also don't forget we're paying rent. We're paying service charge.  I don't actually see this being resolved. We're paying for this and they won't move us. We can't afford to move to private rented or to buy so we're trapped. I've lost faith. It's been years and if I'm really honest I've got no hope.