The big house hunt starts here

Wednesday 9 August was the launch of Hastings Rental Health’s crowdfunder. Timely news on the day that Creditfix revealed that Hastings is in the top five worst towns and cities for single parents to live! The newly formed housing cooperative has set its heart on buying Gensing Manor – the former Embassy language school at the junction of Dane Road and Charles Road. Erica Smith looks at the state of housing in Hastings and encourages you to support a group of people who are reminding us that housing should be a human right, not a commodity.

When I moved to Hastings in 2002, I could have rented a one-bedroom ground floor flat with a garden for £300 a month, and 2-bedroom terraced houses were available to rent for £500 a month. In the last 21 years, median earnings in Hastings have hardly increased, yet a quick scan through Zoopla and Rightmove shows 1-bed flats (all first floor or above, without gardens) are on the market from £695 to £1,100 a month. Rooms to rent are on offer for £600+ per month.

According to East Sussex County Council’s East Sussex in Figures, in 2006, Hastings had the lowest average household annual income at £28,400, contrasting with the regional average of £36,300.

A report on The State of the County in 2020 shows that local workplace earnings went up by less than 11% between 2010 to 2020, whilst earnings of people who live in Hastings went up by more than 21%. In 2020 the Covid pandemic opened up the ability to work from home – including working from a coastal home with the benefit of a London-weighted salary and no commuting costs. This has led to significant additional increases in the cost of both home ownership and renting in Hastings and St Leonards.

Hastings Rental Health began three years ago as a pier-support and campaigning group for people in the rental sector who were finding it harder and harder to find affordable rental properties. Last year a housing cooperative was formed by this group of renters who are fed up with being priced out of the local housing market.

When I moved to Hastings in 2002, the town held two dubious statistical prizes – the area in Europe with the most teenage pregnancies, and the town in the UK with the highest number of divorcees. Both statistics reflected the deprivation and low cost of housing in the area. Today, Creditfix released statistics which revealed that Hastings is in the top five most expensive towns and cities for a single parent to live. This is the nadir of gentrification.

After this shock, the formation of Hastings Rental Health housing coop is a breath of fresh air. Its aim is to bring Gensing Manor, a semi-derelict building in St Leonards into community ownership – tackling the housing crisis by creating affordable, secure homes for people without access to other support.

As a newly formed housing co-operative, they plan to develop a robust proposal which will allow them to buy and repurpose empty properties and land in Hastings and St Leonards to create a template for future community groups to do the same locally and throughout the UK.

To make this happen and to highlight the on-going housing crisis and insecurity of renting, one of their founder members, Sarah Gomes Harris, is walking from Hastings to Yorkshire whilst wearing a handmade Rental Health house.

She has already run the Hastings Half Marathon to raise funds to register the co-op. Throughout August, ‘Housegirl’ will go from co-op to co-op in towns and cities from the South coast to the Pennines. Her journey will include a short stop at the summer gathering of Radical Routes, a UK-wide network of housing co-ops. It will be an information-gathering mission as well as an opportunity to galvanise support and have conversations with all the people that she encounters along the way. Unable to stop working during this endeavour as she still needs to pay her rent back in Hastings, she will also be storyboarding for a new animation in the evenings.

Who are Hastings Rental Health?

“People like you don’t create housing co-ops.” – This is what they were told when they first started talking about co-ops. So of course, they started one!

Co-founded by Sarah Gomes Harris and Nichelle Kelleher in 2022, Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op sprung up from working class and global majority members, with the aim of creating a housing co-op that provides solutions to people most in need.

Despite their precarity as renters, many of them never having lived in one place for longer than three years, they still give their time to grassroots organising and supporting local people who have been forced into similar housing insecurity through rising rents and the cost of living crisis.

The co-op believes in the power of community and mutual aid and recognises that there is no mental health without housing security. Its members share the same values and already support each other and contribute to other local community groups, including St Leonard’s Cycle Club, Women’s Voice, the Refugee Buddy Project, Transition Town Hastings and the community food-growing project Joyful Roots. Their members include a volunteer therapist in a local substance misuse service, community gardeners, a yoga therapist, environmental campaigners, community arts organisers and the initiator of a traders guild which supports long-term traders.

Secure housing will enable Hastings Rental Health Housing Coop members to continue their community organising work more effectively – leading to a more active and empowered community.

What they plan to do

If they can purchase Gensing Manor, they hope to create 22 new homes in and around the property through a combination of renovation of the Manor itself and the creation of environmentally-friendly modular housing units on the surrounding land. The cooperative will work with local architects and engineers to create energy-efficient homes promoting sustainable living practices within the town.

“We are committed to working together to create a healthy living environment where our members can thrive and continue to serve our community, a model that can pave the way for future housing cooperatives in Hastings. With secure housing we could continue and build on the work we already do and could recruit and help more members in need of support”
Sarah Gomes Harris, HRH co-founder

The Co-op has engaged with local residents and community organisations to understand the specific housing needs and challenges in Hastings. Working-class, low-income and migrant communities in Hastings have suffered from generational disadvantage, now compounded by the post-pandemic recession and ongoing economic shocks. The effect on mental and physical health is causing unnecessary harm and destabilisation.

Hasting Rental Health Co-op aims to contribute to a more equitable and inclusive housing market in Hastings and have a positive and lasting impact on the individuals and families, the wider community, and the environment in Hastings and East Sussex.

How will they use the money?

Hastings Rental Health Coop members are dreaming big because it is a big issue and they want to create a sustainable model which will bring unused land and buildings back into community ownership in perpetuity.

Money raised from individual contributions will go towards the development of a robust business plan and on-going consultation with the local community. If the Crowdfunder exceeds their initial £10k target, the additional funds will go towards the deposit for the property and/or piece of land.

The ambitious ‘stretch’ target…

From a moderate £10,000, their stretch target is £390,000 – the amount they will need for a deposit to secure a mortgage on Gensing Manor or a similar property. Any contributions you make big or small will go towards making this happen.

If you are secure in your housing and able to afford to support Hastings Rental Health, please show your support and donate to their Crowdfunder.

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