A student clawed his way from the brink of suicide to take on Europe's biggest housing association, which left him and his neighbours living in mice infested social housing with flooded rooms, collapsed ceilings and creeping mould.
Housing warrior Kwajo Tweneboa, 23, lived in a converted garage before moving into permanent accommodation provided by housing association Clarion. He studied for A Levels on the floor of the mice-infested home he shared with his dad and two sisters. His books and furniture were destroyed when his bedroom flooded, but he said the housing association dragged its feet as he asked for repairs for over a year. He said: "It was a complete living nightmare. You just felt like you were screaming at a brick wall, like no one was listening to what you're saying."
Kwajo hit the worst point in his life when his dad died of cancer while still living in a home "not even fit for animals". He said the housing association robbed him of his ability to grieve, so he funneled that energy into championing the rights of social housing tenants. A viral tweet caught the eyes of ITV News, who spent two weeks filming on Kwajo's estate where some neighbours lived in even worse conditions, including one with a 27-year mice infestation she'd tried to tackle with cement she mixed in her flat.
READ MORE: Children bitten by rats as they slept in bed
The experience thrust Kwajo into the spotlight last year, and finally secured the long-needed repairs. But the problem didn't stop there. Sitting in a café in Liverpool, the London lad flicked through some of the thousands of messages he receives from people desperate for help with their own landlords.
Now the aspiring artist is setting his sights beyond London, travelling to cities across the country to expose the country's housing horrors. This weekend, he's in Liverpool leafletting doors in some of the city's most deprived areas, looking for tenants in need of a voice. He told the ECHO: "I was at my worst a year and a half ago, and now it's time to give [landlord] a taste of their own medicine. It's best for them to fix this. It's in their best interest to fix this sooner rather than later."
The problem of residents not being listened to is the common thread binding the poor living conditions and building safety scandals faced by tenants of councils, housing associations and private landlords, and those who lived in Grenfell Tower. Speaking of their fate slowed Kwajo's pace, his eyes growing deeper and his voice taking on a sombre tone.
He remembers visiting Grenfell when it was surrounded by flowers days after the fire that claimed 72 lives in June 2017. Residents warned of the potential risk years before, but they were left living in a fire trap. Kwajo said: "I remember one lady saying how they were just ignored and weren't listened to. I remember that. And nearly five years on, I'm hearing the same."
Speaking of his own experience struggling to be heard, the 23-year-old from south London said: "You feel like you're just being neglected, and on purpose, and they're aware of it and you know you're not the only one. You know your neighbours are in the same position and you then think, 'Is it because of your colour? Is it because of your race? Is it because of your status? Is it because of your background? What is it?'
"And I think all of them have a role to play in it in terms of discrimination in general. But I think what they misunderstand is social housing tenants are a lot more intelligent and aware of things than they like to believe."
Kwajo galvanised existing concerns around unsafe living conditions, an issue he feels the Labour Party has been too silent on, despite many social housing tenants voting for the party. From his own experience, and from the cries for help he receives, the problem isn't limited to boroughs controlled by one party or another, or one particular type of housing provider. Rather, it's a systemic problem across the country, and with the local elections looming, he thinks it should be a more prominent issue on the political agenda.
Tenants need support to tackle multiple housing crises, because councils and housing associations seem so vast that many individuals feel "out of their depth". This is only exacerbated by people being scared they'll have their home or kids taken away if they try to highlight just how uninhabitable many homes are. It falls to campaigners like Kwajo and charities like Shelter or Home Rescue UK to fix the dire states people find themselves in.
Kwajo uses the power of social media to highlight examples of houses in disrepair, and to shame the providers who leave them this way. Thanks to Twitter, he's reached people across London and the rest of the country, who need help or want to follow his lead. He has no intention to stop until the problem is solved for good.
He said: "Tenants need to have a voice, and not just the parties coming out and, for PR reasons, saying tenants have now got a voice, but to actually have a voice and feel like they have. That's my drive and my focus to ensure that happens. Regulation need to be put in place to hold councils and housing associations responsible. I think there needs to be sanctions, heavy sanctions, for housing association and councils, especially after Grenfell, that feel they can still put tenants lives still at risk. The CEOs and directing boards need to feel like their jobs are on the line. Because at the moment, they don't."
Clarion denies Kwajo received little help with the problems he face, and said they have carried out hundreds of repairs on Kwajo's Eastfields estate since June 2021y, the Guardian reports.
