Screening of the film “Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle”

Film screening with a post-film panel discussion. This event will be sponsored by Ecology Building Society, and will have free admission.

Facilitator:

Prof Paul Chatterton , University of Leeds

Panellists:

Jonathan Lindh, Leeds Community Homes
Ellen Rowbottom, Hands Off Our Homes

Synopsis

For some people, a housing crisis means not getting planning permission for a loft conversion. For others it means, quite simply, losing their home. Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle is a feature documentary directed by Paul Sng (Sleaford Mods – Invisible Britain) and narrated by Maxine Peake, exploring the catastrophic failures that have led to a chronic shortage of social housing in Britain.

The film focuses on the neglect, demolition and regeneration of council estates across the UK and investigates how the state works with the private sector to demolish council estates to build on the land they stand on, making properties that are unaffordable to the majority of people. Dispossession is the story of people fighting for their communities, of people who know the difference between a house and a home, and who believe that housing is a human right, not an expensive luxury.

CV

Paul Chatterton is a writer, researcher and campaigner. He is Professor of Urban Futures in the School of Geography where he co-founded the ‘Cities and Social Justice’ Research Cluster and MA in ‘Activism and Social Change’. He is currently Director of the University’s Sustainable Cities Group. He is co-founder of the public charity ‘Antipode’ dedicated to research and scholarship in radical geography and an associate editor of the journal ‘City’. Paul is also co-founder, first secretary and resident of the pioneering and award-winning Leeds based low impact housing co-operative Lilac (www.lilac.coop).