SLAPPs - Ben Jenkins vs. GreenSquareAccord
A housing association whose failures had already been upheld did not respond with reflection or reform. Instead, the response escalated: communication restrictions, legal threats, court action, and ultimately an arrest.
This is not about one resident. It is about what happens when accountability is replaced with control, and when raising legitimate concerns is met not with answers, but with pressure.
SLAPPs are not just a legal issue. In housing, they carry real consequences. When residents are silenced, problems do not disappear. They remain, often hidden, until they become something far more serious.
This is my experience, now raised in Parliament and recognised beyond it. The question is no longer whether this happened. The question is what the sector does about it.
When Your Home’s Unsafe, Are the Problems Only Just Beginning?
Eight years after Grenfell, the list of unsafe buildings keeps growing. Thousands have already been evacuated — but how many more remain unsafe, unacknowledged, and unaddressed? In this week’s Housing Sector blog, I speak with Matt Hodges-Long of the Building Safety Register about the rising number of homes being declared uninhabitable, the residents left in limbo, and a government still downplaying the scale of the crisis.
Chartered Institute of Housing: Spin. Silence. Repeat.
When I was first slapped with a so-called contact management plan—what it really was, was a communication ban—I was shocked. GreenSquareAccord stopped me from emailing staff, blocked me from sharing updates with leadership, and told me that copying in multiple people “muddied the waters.” It was the beginning of an institutional gag order.
What Do I Mean by the Echo Chamber?
I didn’t coin the phrase echo chamber — but the moment I heard it, something clicked. It put words to something I’ve been feeling for years in the housing sector. It’s not just that residents are being ignored; it’s that a closed loop of professionals are talking to each other, validating each other, and shaping public narratives without ever meaningfully engaging with the people actually living through the housing crisis.