Housing activist Kwajo Tweneboa says 'the Equalities Act does not exist within social housing'

Social housing activist Kwajo Tweneboa has called out councils for alleged discrimination against vulnerable individuals and breaking rules set by the Equality Act 2010

Housing activist Kwajo Tweneboa has shamed councils for allegedly not following the Equalities Act 2010, and fears vulnerable residents may "tragically die" due to ongoing discrimination.

Kwajo explained that councils are failing society’s most defenceless people and placing them in life or death situations.

He said: "Some of the country’s most vulnerable individuals are being categorically failed… those fleeing domestic violence, care-leavers you name it, I have seen it. It makes you wonder how they have not tragically died because of what they’ve been subjected to.

"When you walk into a council and you are homeless and you’ve got nowhere to lay your head that night and they're trying to come up with any way or excuse just to get you back out of that door and to not have to help you, you realise then that there’s a serious problem."

Kwajo claimed the social housing system failed to abide by the Equality Act 2010, "which legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society". This includes safeguarding for "protected characteristics" such as race and disability.

He explained: "The Equalities Act does not exist within housing. It doesn’t exist within housing when we’re talking about social housing and working class individuals… It’s almost as if instead of working with you and for you, they’re working against you."

Kwajo lived in a cockroach-filled, mice-infested and asbestos covered council flat with his sick father in 2018. His dad had to use his "English name instead of his Ghanaian name just to be seen as more British or to be taken more seriously", highlighting an issue of racism within the housing institution.

Kwajo continued: "Within social housing specifically, there is a certain class and demographic of people who are treated less than everyone else within society and that fundamentally has to change. If they don't change that, there is no fixing this housing crisis.

"They can't talk about fixing it without addressing that issue of culture and of stigma towards those actually having to live through it and putting their health and safety and lives at risk on a daily basis."

Kwajo has found similarities between the complaints of the Grenfell Tower fire survivors, a tragic incident which claimed the lives of 72 people, and the families he speaks to suffering in social housing on a daily basis as an activist.

He said: "The fact that seven years ago we had politicians lining the street after Grenfell, days after Grenfell promising change, promising the same thing wouldn't be allowed to happen again, promising that those responsible will be held to account.

"But seven years on I am now going around the country speaking to families on a daily basis who are saying they are being treated in the same way Grenfell survivors had been complaining about before Grenfell happened years later."

Kwajo has called on the government to make urgent change to the state of UK social housing saying: "If the individuals of Westminster would not live in these conditions, then nobody should be living in these conditions."