'I built my own home to beat the London housing crisis'

‘I built my own home to beat the London housing crisis’

Tim Oshodi built one of 13 homes in Lewisham in the 1990s as part of a black-led housing cooperative

Finding an affordable home in the capital is far from easy, so for anyone struggling to get on the housing ladder or keep up with rent, building a home of their own can sound like an attractive option.

In 1990s London, some housing cooperatives created entire streets of social housing, passing on knowledge and building skills among themselves.

But 30 years later, can that model still work effectively while also complying with today’s stricter building rules?

Tim Oshodi lives in Lewisham in a two-bedroom house with a large garden that he built himself.

It is a timber-framed home in the style of radical architect Walter Segal, on land that the local council had historically marked as unsuitable for mainstream housing.

Oshodi was part of London’s first black-led housing cooperative, Fusions Jameen, which self-built 13 social homes on Nubia Way around 30 years ago, each with an assured tenancy and a 30% discount in rent.

“We had to set up our own black-led cooperative in order to get our housing,” Tim explained.

The 13 self-built wooden homes on Nubia Way, each with a grass roof, were designed to blend into the surrounding natural environment

The homes were built between 1994 and 1997 on a disused garage site bought by Chisel Housing Association for the cooperative to develop.

The housing co-op then put out a call for people to come forward, prioritising those of African/Caribbean descent, Lewisham residents and anyone in housing need.

They were invited to build their own social homes there: free labour in return for a decent place to live.

Hundreds of people initially signed up to build their own homes, but the 24-hour-a-week commitment needed to complete the project over three years meant many drifted away, leaving a much smaller group of committed but inexperienced people to do the work.

“You don’t use this now, but we used post-and-beam. You made the frames on the ground and then pushed them up. It was easier for first-time builders,” Tim said.

The Nubia Way self-builders used the post-and-beam method in the style of radical architect Walter Segal

As they tried to build, the self-builders encountered hostility and racism from local people.

In 1993, black teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in nearby Eltham in a racist attack.

The self-builders had to guard the site overnight to prevent the homes being set on fire.

Anti-racism protesters in 1990s London

“There were all these rumours that we were these African refugees taking white working-class people’s homes,” said Oshodi.

“But we were refugees from Battersea, from Peckham,” he explained.

Despite the difficulties, the homes were eventually completed successfully, and 30 years later a mixed community of people from all backgrounds now lives in Nubia Way.

The success of the Nubia Way project inspired others to build similar homes of their own.

In the late 1990s, single mother Charmaine McNally was living in a two-bedroom flat in a Lewisham tower block with her two sons and a daughter, all sharing one room.

Charmaine built a five-bedroom wooden-framed home

One day, while at the housing office, she saw a leaflet from the South London Family Housing Association (SLFHA) about building your own home.

“I was on a ban because I’d been offered a flat in a different block and I refused because it was no bigger than what I had,” she said.

“I saw Tim (Oshodi) at one of the meetings talking about self-building.”

She decided to join.

“I was desperate. I didn’t have another choice. And when you have no other choice, you have to make it work.”

Over three years, she completed what is now a five-bedroom home in a female-led self-build next to Chinbrook Park.

The 14 homes in Meadow Lane were built in exchange for a 10% reduction in rent and an assured tenancy.

Feeling empowered by the experience and keen to do more, McNally founded a successful all-female building and maintenance company, employing mostly women from the Meadow Lane self-build site.

Inspired by his mother’s achievement, her son later built his own home and also started his own construction firm.

Charmaine was involved in the build from beginning to end and even helped on other sites to gain experience

Years later, McNally was eventually able to buy the home she had built.

When asked how she felt about the project, she said, “I feel proud of myself, because I wasn’t just given something. I earned it and I deserve it.”

Levent Kerimol is the director of the social enterprise Community Led Homes.

He would like to see more community self-builds, but believes building your own home is still too difficult in the UK because of increasingly strict building regulations.

“Nowadays construction has become a lot more complicated with building regulations, health and safety, insurance and funders requirements that make it very difficult to do this kind of self-construction, at least with public money.

He said that in London, co-operative and community-led housing accounted for around 0.1% of housing in London per year, but the figure was much higher in many European cities, at around 11% in Berlin, 20% in Zurich, up to 50% in Vienna, with growing movements in Barcelona and Amsterdam.

“However it is still far too difficult to do, and can take many years with no guarantee of success,” Kerimol added.

“This is something we are looking to address through collective ownership, making it easier for people to move into stable, affordable homes that they control as landlords together with their neighbours.”

The Naked House build is another alternative.

It is a custom-build rather than a self-build, meaning the basic shell of the house is completed for you, and buyers can make it their own by adding flooring, walls and outside tiling.

The homes are private rather than social, but they are designed to be affordable, with the freehold on sale at 20% below market rate.

“The starting prices are £235,000. The bigger homes come in at around £330,000, which sounds like a lot but it is affordable for two incomes,” said Simon Chouffot, one of the co-founders of the not-for-profit community builder Naked House.

Naked House co-founder Simon Chouffot wanted to build something he could live in

“It’s got a very bare aesthetic, so there’s huge opportunity for people to put their stamp on a place.”

The Naked House project took years to get going, so long that Chouffot and his friends ended up buying outside London before construction began, even though the original plan had been to build homes they could live in themselves.

The builders on the Naked Build site are thankfully fully clothed

“We were all being priced out of the communities in which we’d put down roots,” he explained.

“Community and sustainability that’s what people want from housing,” Chouffot believes. “Sometimes that gets lost with the big house builders.”