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When organising our Housing in Crisis series I was directed to the housing association Poplar HARCA, and told what they were doing in Poplar was worth looking at. Despite ringing endorsements for their innovative work the prospect of a three hour tour of Poplar on a Monday morning was still not filling me with overwhelming enthusiasm. When I got back, the tour had been so interesting I went along and did it a second time, and arranged an interview with Steve Stride - the tour guide, HARCA's characterful chief executive, a man very much from the Bob Crow school of frank discourse and a lifelong Londoner.
What makes HARCA's work interesting is two things. Firstly, Poplar captures so many of the nation's problems in microcosm: unemployment, poverty, community tensions, health problems, housing pressures, inequality, education problems, Islamism... The second is HARCA's approach to dealing with them, and particularly in contrast to 'regeneration' as London tends to experience it. Considering the range of problems in question the idea that they fall under the remit of a Housing Association seems strange yet HARCA seems to get involved in every facet of the community; they see their role as transforming not just the housing but the locality and the local community as a whole - and that community seem largely behind them.
