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From Genisis Residents
Why? Actually it is pretty straightforward.
The board and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) have been campaigning to ‘de-regulate’ or ‘de-register’ Genesis. Meaning they want to get out of most of government control or become private completely.
Do you remember the mutual building societies which went private about twenty years ago? The same kind of thing. They all ended up in the hands of banks.
In addition Genesis now clearly have a policy of raising rents so they can obtain more loans on the private money markets to build out-of-reach homes. In one recent case Genesis has asked the rent officer for an over 90% rent increase for a secure tenant. Hopefully the Rent Officer will not give in - but there is no guarantee.
Recently Genesis advertised a home for sale for £1,000,000. And another one bedroomed home was offered at a rent of £1,950 per month. I don’t suppose there are many readers who can pay that kind of rent.
The CEO publicly announced back in 2015 that Genesis would not build any good quality low rent houses. He said: “That won’t be my problem.”
He also explained how he looked at the homes of the residents: ‘[We are] really looking at our asset base and seeing what the value of that is and how we can get our hands on that value, (our emphasis) by changing its tenure, by churning it, by selling it and using those proceeds to build more homes.’
Nice! These are our homes he is talking about.
So residents have a fight on their hands and we have created a new residents organisations called ‘Genesis Residents.’
The next meeting for residents is in Harlesden on Thursday 16th February from 6:30.
It will be held in the Harlesden Methodist Church, 25 High Street, Harlesden, NW10 4NE
All the details can be found on our Facebook Page or you can e mail us at the address below
Hopefully we will see you there.