Oxford’s housing crisis is Europe’s worst. Join our 29th March community workshop to unpack causes, class, and strategies for change. Here are a few words from one of the community organisers who invited us to Oxford:
I'm really passionate about housing equity in Oxford, after 20 years living, loving and parenting here. I dream of a world where everyone has a home over which they have full autonomy, and where there aren't any landlords/landladies/landpeople. Where homes are very cheap and not for profit but for living and loving in. I was raised poor and working class in a council house in Brighton and, after a few years as a builder, was fortunate enough to go to university and now have potential access to higher paying jobs. I won't say it was through hard work as this might add to the myth that middle and owning class folks work harder for their larger share (it's a myth and a lie even before you count the work of processing all the trauma which is almost always blown downwards in terms of race, class and gender and more). I always had a sense that I'd lose more than I gained by working "hard" (at a graduate job) and earning lots. I shunned my six figure salary in banking or actuary (a close uni friend of mine literally filled in the application forms I had collected and went on to do the internships and jobs I'd imagined doing whilst getting rich, during my years as a builder). So I've spent many years now living on a low income and giving ⅓ to charity. Over the last decade and a half my income has increased from £6,000 to £12,000 and my charitable donations from £1,000 to £6,000. As a graduate hourly earner this low income has allowed me lots of space for spiritual and equity activism. I recognise that many people work long hard hours for minimum wage or below, and count myself rich and privileged based on that. My main activist focus is on trying to involve everyone in personal equity work, because it's rare for one person to be in every single oppressed group. I'm developing a womanist project called Ups and Downs IDEALS. I use IDEALS to mean Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Anti-Oppressionism, Lifelong Liberation Learning and Somatic Safety). Here "Ups and Downs" means that almost everyone is in some groups with power that gives them a push up in life and in some groups that society overall pushes down (as well us pushing their trauma down upon them). I've also survived the first chunk of parenting, and am parenting with a partner who had a mortgage on a small flat when we met which has given me access to the world of owning a home. Hence I'm now working on a project to develop cohousing communities using existing housing stock. I want to convert neighbouring lofts into something I'm calling Passive Penthouses; then using the profit from those to fund eco-renovation of the houses below. And turning the new little block, with one big garden and a shared "shed" space, into a cohousing community. Hopefully turning our housing stock into passive houses, and creating sustainable and happier communities. However my guess is that almost anyone accessing this will either be from a middle or owning class background, or will have been to university or otherwise accessed middle or owning class roles and resources. So on March 29th, we'll host the second Exploring Class workshop in Oxford. I hope that this workshop will allow some of those with the money to buy homes and create cohousing communities, to find understanding of their privilege, compassion and motivation to create real solutions to make these homes and communities accessible to people of all socioeconomic groups. We'll be learning to unpack our class, and looking towards solutions for housing inequity in Oxford. You're welcome to join us. Tx from Oxford.