London Assembly member Sian Berry

CITY HALL has started to focus on the injustices facing women in our housing system, and it is long overdue.

The gender pay gap is the first part of the picture. In 2016, I raised this in my first ever Mayor’s Question Time because Sadiq Khan was basing his new (and very welcome) definition of a London Living Rent on median wages in each area of the city.

I asked was he potentially creating new inequalities if his definition wasn’t based on the real wages of women?

Another blow to women’s housing rights comes from the fact we often need larger homes because of caring responsibilities.

In the private rented sector in particular, many woman-headed households on already lower wages simply can’t afford the number of bedrooms they need.

Overcrowding adds to health problems, including damp and mould, and seriously affects children’s ability to socialise or do homework.

Adding to all this are intersections with other discriminations and biases.

Disabled women already have less choice of where to live when most homes are not built or adapted to their needs.

Children with learning disabilities can find overcrowded homes impossible to cope with.

Young women on the streets are mainly hidden from the homelessness statistics as they stay away from public places, but face extreme risks that current outreach systems fail to address.

Only 12 out of 32 boroughs have any specialist homelessness services for women.

Getting these issues recognised and acted upon within the housing system is full of barriers, including a lack of funding, and layers of bureaucracy that already disadvantaged groups of women find hard to navigate.

And then there are the consequences of racism – both within systems and as prejudices and biases from individuals.

As a councillor, so many of the housing problems I see at my surgeries (usually once people have failed to get their needs met by landlords, housing associations or the council) are being experienced by women from the global majority.

These inequalities were recognised in February in strong recommendations from the London Assembly Housing committee I sit on.

During our investigation we heard from Solace Women’s Aid that, for example: “Women face specific gatekeeping practices when they approach local authority housing options services. Often this can be about a lack of belief or questioning women’s experiences.

“Anecdotally, this is particularly severe for certain groups, including Black and minoritised women, disabled women and young women.”

Our committee has made a whole range of recommendations asking for better data collection to monitor where these intersectional biases are causing harm and to which groups in particular, and the committee chair, Sem Moema AM from Labour, has urged the Mayor to take notice of our demands and start to level the playing field for women.

These themes came out strongly in the discussions at City Hall this week, where a cross-sector policy forum to look at gender equality, which was promised by the Mayor in his 2021 manifesto, was at last convened.

My view is that this work needs to be continued in a way that gives more power to women affected by the housing crisis to fund, develop and expand their own solutions, and to hold those running the system to account.

A housing system that is led by and works for a young disabled women of colour with responsibility for children would truly be one that was better for everyone.

 Sian Berry is a Green Camden councillor and London Assembly Member