Windrush pensioner: We’ve been treated differently because we are black
Thelma Campbell, an 89-year-old woman, born in Jamaica, moved to Britain as part of the Windrush mass migration in 1960. Ms. Campbell moved to Britain when Britain was still part of the British Empire and therefore a British citizen. Jamaica later got Independence in 1962.
The former factory worker has lived, worked, and raised her children in England since she had arrived.
The ‘Windrush’ generation are those who arrived in the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973. Many took up jobs in the nascent NHS and other sectors affected by Britain’s post-war labour shortage. Thelma Campbell has been instructed to vacate the supported housing estate where she has resided for over twenty years in Tottenham, north London, as tenants are being displaced following numerous structural issues. She is confronting the prospect of homelessness due to the Home Office’s inability to verify her identity.
Despite her long-term residence in the borough and receipt of a state pension, Haringey Council is insisting on Ms Campbell presenting her British passport as proof of British citizenship, which she does not possess, before they will agree to rehouse her. The Home Office is currently addressing the issue with the council, but in the interim, Ms Campbell remains in a state of uncertainty.
“I lived in this property for 23 years and when I moved in they didn’t ask for my passport,” she told The Independent. “Two of us – another lady with Alzheimer’s and I – as Black people said we want to stay in Haringey because all our lives are here since we landed. We’ve been treated differently because we are Black, and the first thing she [a council representative] is asking me is for a passport.”
Thelma’s issue is not an isolated case; it lies at the core of the Windrush scandal, which emerged due to the government’s “hostile environment” policies. These policies require individuals to provide documentation, such as passports, to access essential services like housing. Similar to Ms. Campbell, thousands of Caribbean-born British citizens impacted by the scandal were requested to present documents they did not have readily available.
The Local Government Association indicates that multiple forms of ID are acceptable in situations like this, including a passport, driver’s licence, and birth certificate. Unfortunately, Ms. Campbell has been unable to locate her passport, and the council did not accept her pension book, Freedom Pass, or her UK-born son’s 1962 birth certificate as valid proof of identity. Her family is now deeply concerned about the stress this predicament is causing.
“I wasn’t eating. I was crying and couldn’t sleep,” Ms Campbell said. “When my son came down, he said to me, ‘Mum, you’re wasting away’.”
Ms Campbell has been told she will need to vacate her property, where she has lived since 2003, in July and advised that alternative residence is available in south London. However, she is not keen to move to the other side of London, where she has no ties.
Ms Campbell’s son Errol wrote in a letter of complaint to the council: “I am of the firm belief that if my mother leaves this area, her mental health will deteriorate rapidly.
“She knows all the shopkeepers and characters in the area and everyone greets her as she goes by or she stops and has a chat with them. As an old woman on her own, this is a massive help to her mental health and helps with bouts of loneliness she is now feeling with the estate emptying out.
“I cannot see her having the strength at her age to build these relationships if she had to move to an area she does not know.”
Ms Campbell observed her 89th birthday and the Windrush Day anniversary just last week but felt unable to celebrate the former.
“When they find me somewhere to live, I’ll celebrate,” she said. “We’ve been through a hard time when we come here to build this country and to know how they treat us Windrush people… like we’re not entitled. I paid my dues here like anybody else.”
A Haringey Council spokesperson said the council was disappointed by the actions of Ms Campbell’s supported housing provider, which they said “gave assurances that none of the residents would be made homeless and alternative accommodation would be provided”.
“We want to ensure this commitment is met,” the spokesperson said.
“The council is obliged by government rules to ensure that any person seeking housing support is eligible for assistance. Despite our best efforts, the Home Office has been unable to verify Ms Campbell’s status.
According to the Guardian, the origins of the Windrush scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population, according to a leaked government report.
The stark conclusion was set out in a Home Office commissioned paper that officials have repeatedly tried to suppress over the past year.
The 52-page analysis by an unnamed historian, which has been seen by the Guardian, describes how “the British Empire depended on racist ideology in order to function”, and sets out how this affected the laws passed in the postwar period.
It concludes that the origins of the “deep-rooted racism of the Windrush scandal” lie in the fact that “during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”.
It finds that the scandal was caused by a failure to recognise that changes to British immigration law over the past 70 years had a more negative impact on black people than on other racial and ethnic groups.
“As a result, the experiences of Britain’s black communities of the Home Office, of the law, and of life in the UK have been fundamentally different from those of white communities,” the report states. “Major immigration legislation in 1962, 1968 and 1971 was designed to reduce the proportion of people living in the United Kingdom who did not have white skin.”
The Guardian