On the night of the Grenfell Tower fire, Polly Neate looked out of her window at the tower block blaze. “I saw the flames and heard the sirens,” she says. “I don’t think you could fail to have a really unsettling, almost nauseating sense of your own privilege. Standing in your really nice secure house and looking at that block burning – I mean how could you not be impacted by that?”
Neate was the chief executive of Women’s Aid at the time of the fire, but was due to start heading up the housing charity Shelter six weeks later. She admits she “wasn’t an expert” on housing, but her new role meant she had to learn the intricacies of the UK’s housing crisis quickly. Now, the tragedy was on her doorstep: her daughter returned home that evening to tell her mother that several girls from her school had been burned out of their homes and had come to sit their GCSE exams hours later, in their pyjamas. Neate tweeted this anecdote and it swiftly went viral.
“I’m really proud of that tweet in a funny way because I think it did help to humanise the tragedy right at the very beginning of the story. It humanised the residents because it was so positive,” Neate says. “We demonise young people as a society, and we demonise council residents. So I just thought at the very least it was something counter to that narrative.”
The disaster has meant some of Neate’s earliest decisions have had to focus on the fire, in addition to wider housing problems. A team at Shelter is working with lawyers to research what needs to change to allow tenants to raise concerns about safety through the legal system in future, an avenue that was denied to Grenfell Tower residents. Neate is launching a Shelter-wide review into what the charity’s priorities should be, and says she wants to include feedback and thoughts from people at all levels of the organisation – the charity employs 1,186 people – before publishing its new strategic objectives.
So why did Neate move from Women’s Aid to Shelter? “You couldn’t avoid the housing crisis, working in domestic abuse. The recovery of women is hindered by a basic lack of housing, and the way they are treated by housing agencies as well.” The number of households in temporary accommodation due to homelessness has risen 61% since 2010, to over 77,000 in England. Rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010.
“Housing is the bedrock of everything, so when the job came up I was inspired to do something about it. I felt there was a massive opportunity to make a shift in terms of housing. And now [after Grenfell] there’s an even greater need and opportunity.”
One thing Shelter should be doing, she argues, is pushing the narrative on housing further and redefining housing’s purpose and people’s rights to good quality housing. “We’ve lost our way as a country. Housing is a fundamental need, and nobody disagrees with that. But actually, we’ve lost a shared ideal about how we define that need, what we mean by that and what we have to do about it,” she says. “And Shelter has to play a leading role in getting back to that question, demanding accountability and building a narrative.”
Shelter has recently advertised several roles working within Westminster council, including early intervention officers. Is there a risk that being paid to run a service by a local authority could impinge on the charity’s impartiality? “It’s almost impossible for charities to deliver services at local level without partnerships with local authorities,” Neate replies. “If you’re trying to get a better deal for local people you have to work with the councils to make that happen. What you also have to do, though, is retain your independence and your critical voice, and in our case even the ability to challenge the local authority legally.
“We have to be really upfront with local authorities and say we will challenge them. And actually, in my experience at Action for Children, local authorities want to work with charities who will genuinely and fearlessly advocate on behalf of their service users, so they respect that. People feel a bit queasy when it gets a bit close to home and when they’re challenged. But I think people respect in totality that if they work with you, you will be upfront.”
Neate says she will push for Shelter to be actively campaigning as well as providing advice. “I believe that charities have an absolute obligation to be campaigning – and to speak out on behalf of their service users and on behalf of society as a whole. I absolutely don’t agree with attempts to prevent charities from doing that.”
Such attempts include the 2014 Lobbying Bill, nicknamed the “gag law”, that many charity workers say has had a “chilling effect” on their ability to lobby and speak out politically. Neate agrees it has had an effect. “I think the letter of the law hasn’t had a disastrous effect, but the spirit of it is a real problem,” says Neate. “Criticising charities who speak out and who campaign is a big issue, and I think we are seeing a greater level of caution in the charity sector around self-censorship.” But, she adds, “I think there is such a thing as responsible and irresponsible campaigning.”
“Charities should not be campaigning in a way which allies them with a particular political party. They shouldn’t need the Lobbying Act to tell them this. Genuinely allowing the voices of beneficiaries to be heard makes your campaigning impossible to argue with.”
Neate cites the example of changes to voter registration rules to enable women living in domestic violence refuges to vote, announced this week. “This was a campaign which Women’s Aid ran alongside a domestic abuse survivor called Mehala Osborne,” says Neate. “She was the face and voice of the campaign and it was absolutely driven by her, with our support.”
Former Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief executive Julia Unwin is heading up an inquiry into the future of civil society, which Neate professes excitement about: “I think the charity sector need to be thinking about what we want to be in 20 to 30 years time – and being proactive about that rather than being ‘done to’ all the time. We should be asserting what we want to look like – and be prepared to change our own behaviour in order to achieve that outcome,” she says. “So a big example from Women’s Aid – do we want a sector that includes local activists leading genuinely co-produced services and campaigning? If so, we really have to change our own behaviour.”
Neate says there’s lots to be positive about around Shelter’s ability to enact change, but she admits to having to employ some “negative people” to counter her boundless optimism. “What I’m really excited about is Shelter’s ability to mobilise strong networks of stakeholders and supporters, and its excellent relationship with levels of government. And I’m really excited about using that to move the needle on the housing crisis – and I do believe it can be done,” she says.
“At the moment, housing is playing a huge role in the difficulties people face, and exacerbating problems. It is making other issues in people’s lives worse – whether that be mental health, domestic violence, their children’s education or their physical health. Imagine if housing could actually make people’s lives better.”
Can the housing crisis be ended? “To not believe it’s possible is a bit of a counsel of despair isn’t it? Nobody would take a job as CEO of Shelter if they didn’t believe that was possible – and if they weren’t prepared to fight for it.”
Curriculum vitae
Age 51.
Lives west London.
Family partner, two daughters .
Education Gumley House school, Isleworth and St Paul’s Girls’ school, Hammersmith; Bristol University (BA English); City University (postgraduate diploma in journalism).
Career August 2017 – present: chief executive, Shelter; 2014-17: independent member, government’s National Oversight Group on Domestic Violence; 2013-17: chief executive, Women’s Aid; 2013-17: independent member, Labour working group on domestic violence policy; 2008-09: independent member, Labour working group on children’s policy; 2005-13: executive director of external relations, Action for Children; 1998-2005: editor, Community Care magazine; 1989-98: freelance journalist.
Public life member of the steering group of Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk.
Interests cycling, writing.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion