At Shelter Lancashire, we’re working on a project called My Home, My Voice, aimed at empowering people to improve the standard of housing in the private-rented sector as a result of landlords’ inaction. We know many people are living in poor conditions, with landlords refusing to address issues such as damp, disrepair, broken boilers and more. We want to raise awareness of this and people’s housing rights and put pressure on landlords to fulfil their responsibilities. Please could you share this with anyone you think would be interested in taking part?
The project is based around photography – people can take pictures of issues landlords aren’t fixing and, we will share these anonymously on social media and publish a report based on them. We also plan to meet with local stakeholders such as Blackburn with Darwen Council to drive change on how poor housing conditions are addressed locally.
It will be completely co-produced. We will form a participant group to coproduce key stages of the project, including the report and the meeting with local stakeholders.
There are three ways people can participate:
- Taking and sharing photos – participants can take photos of issues that landlords aren’t fixing themselves and send them to us.
- Sharing their views – they can take part in a short interview on topics like their views on housing rights and what good housing is.
- Coproduce the project – by joining the participant group. With current Covid restrictions, this will be online, with a hope of moving to face to face meetings if possible.
Please could you share this opportunity with your service users. For anyone who would like to get involved or if you have any questions, please contact Matthew Blomefield by emailing matthew_blomefield@shelter.org.uk or calling 0344 515 1177.
