ABSTRACT
The LARH Report (1988: 5.7-15) also provided evidence of landlords subjecting black tenants to racial abuse, harassment and exploitation through lack of knowledge and rights. The Tower Hamlets Homeless Families Campaign provided comments about three incidents of racism:
Racial discrimination in conditions
Discrimination by accommodation agencies
The CRE investigation into Allen's Accommodation Bureau in Paddington (CRE, 1980) may serve to illustrate the nature of unlawful discrimination occurring. Mr Ajao, a 292
Bed and breakfast
An increasing number of housing authorities now spend vast proportions of their housing budget in the temporary, and often long-term, housing of homeless families in bed-andbreakfast accommodation and hotels operated in the private sector. The 1985 GLC survey of such temporary accommodation (GLC, 1986a) found that 70 per cent of London boroughs (twenty-four of thirty-three) were using such provision in December 1984 and 78 per cent of households so resident were placed by six boroughs - Camden, Brent, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham and Ealing - west and north-west London being most acutely affected. This constituted a rise of more than 300 per cent from 1981. The statutory Code of Guidance relating to the Homeless Persons legislation states that such accommodation should be used for as short a period as possible but the GLC survey showed an average length of stay in respect of the six boroughs with the highest usage varying from six to thirteen months (GLC, 1986a: Table 5). Net revenue expenditure had risen in Greater London from £4.3 million in 1981/82 to £12.5 million in 1984/85 (Table 9). Including hostel accommodation, expenditure for 1984/85 was £ 16 million - an increase of 40 per cent over the previous year.
