Housing Black & Minoritised Communities in Bristol:
A Community-led Initiative
This research project, undertaken by BSWN, has been jointly funded by Power to Change and Bristol City Council. This project is aimed at capturing the current picture in terms of Black and Minoritised housing needs & aspirations in Bristol. The overall project’s objective is to provide evidence for the drafting of recommendations to tackle the housing emergency in Bristol and explore potential solutions, particularly around community-led initiatives.
Stakeholders in this project recognise there has been no systematic review of housing needs and aspirations of Black and Minoritised communities resident in Bristol since the 2006 study Black & Minority Ethnic Housing Needs in Bristol, which was commissioned by Bristol City Council and undertaken by Andy Steele and Naseer Ahmed. This is problematic given the local housing landscape has shifted dramatically since 2006. Bristol is experiencing economic development which comes with significant levels of inward migration. This, coupled with still insufficient supply of housing, drives the process of gentrification which continues to be felt across the city. However, while it affects Bristol as a whole, gentrification is unlikely to be experienced equally by its diverse communities and the central parts of the city appear to be disproportionately affected. These areas are also often also among the most diverse neighbourhoods, which raises questions about the impact on Black and Minoritised communities specifically.
Bristol City Council has prioritised housing and transport development as its strategic objectives, which ties in with the objectives of the West of England Joint Spatial Plan for the next 20 years. The city has also stated its ambition to address the long-standing challenge of race inequalities. At the same time, Power to Change is looking to invest in innovative community-led housing programmes to support the most vulnerable communities in an equitable and inclusive way.
The research report, Housing BAME Communities in Bristol: A Community-led Initiative, was launched at the Bristol Race & Housing Conference 2020 held by Bristol City Council and SARI on the 18th of November 2020.
OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE BRISTOL HOUSING FESTIVAL
Our Research & Policy Officer Angelique Retief recently contributed to the Bristol Housing Festival over the month of October.
Healthy Engagement and Consultation in Practice (14/10/20)
The Bristol Housing Festival, with support from Goram Homes, brought together a variety of perspectives for a roundtable discussion including developers, Bristol City Council, community advocates and others to discuss the purpose of consultation and reimagine how it could be done to meet its objectives. Central to the discussion was the belief that community consultation is an essential part of the conversation when building new homes, but how this should be done, when and who should be consulted is often debated. This report summarises the key points of the debate and recommendations.
Homelessness in a Pandemic: Perspectives, Challenges and Solutions (21/10/20)
What are the particular challenges to homelessness in the midst of a pandemic? This event brings together both local and national perspectives on the challenges, key insights, learning and innovation in this unique moment in history. If you missed it, you can watch the event replay here.
Tenants Hall Community Engagement Session and Report
Illustrations and video recorded in this graphic harvest by Fine Artist and Illustrator, Drew Sinclair.
As part of the process of bidding for the building, Bristol Somali Resource Centre in support of BSWN, Community Led Homes West, and Bristol Community Land Trust held a public engagement session on the 16th of June 2022. Key to the event's planning was to maximize attendees' engagement. This was done by creating different routes for community residents to participate in the discussion, including:
The main discussion and Q&A
A survey
Group table discussions
Building a prototype neighbourhood with Lego
‘What is strong, what is wrong?’ poster
Voting with a dot sticker on a poster
Sunday 14th June marked the third anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington, London, which caused 72 deaths and more than 70 injuries. Despite the campaigning in the wake of the tragedy, why do Black and Asian descent people still fall so far behind in basic human rights such as housing?