We’re Still Here (Melissa Herman 2020)

Homes for People Not for Profit.  When ‘genuinely affordable’ written on glossy development hoardings means ‘nowhere near affordable’

This is a smashing and absorbing film highlighting the personal accounts of residents in various London boroughs who are casualties of social cleansing and exploring their efforts to fightback.  The film neatly sets out residents’ experiences at the hands of cash-strapped councils and housing associations as they let housing estates fall into decline and move out tenants, destroying communities to turn the ‘stock’ over to a shared enterprise with private developers.   This process makes the provision of homes, a basic human right, into a profit-only exercise, making affordable housing out of reach for key workers and those with even an average income.  As a tenant succinctly states, ‘They don’t like us to call it social cleansing but what else is it?’

The film gives a broad range of voices a chance to outline their experience and to expose the various authoritarian tactics they encounter.  The downright dishonesty in the twisting of language they are up against is galling.  Phrases like ‘right to return’, ‘genuinely affordable’ and the word ‘regeneration’, all become toxic and Orwellian in their true meaning.  

The unheeded written warning about landlord neglect made by residents in the long lead up to the Grenfell Tower tragedy is presented on screen as an horrific example of what can still happen when people affected are not involved in discussions and decisions made about them.  

This film offers us the chance to meet inspirational individuals, some who describe being politicised and feeling empowered for the first time, standing up, coming together and fighting back.  A ray of hope is offered that these tenants can fight and win.  Why on earth they should need to spend their lives fighting for their right to a decent home in their own communities is another question.

Written by Denise Hobart