Letters to the Editor   "Re-telling the story of Genesis". 30 Mar 2006.   Dear Sir, Your article on Genesis, Paddington Churches Housing Association, (Big homes group gets a big toast, Mar 16) omits a few important truths. It has recently broken its own rules by refusing to allow tenants to stand for election to their management board which, along with their Annual General Meetings, it runs with its usual obsessive secrecy. Its complaints procedure is a hypocritical , hollow sham, culminating in the Housing Ombudsman Service, entirely funded by the landlords, and worth no more than a chocolate teapot. Genesis was challenged on a Dimbleby programme for having wasted 75% on a refurbishment project which involved the simultaneous conversion of one bed flats into family homes whilst family homes were being converted into one bed flats. PCHA replied that "it responded to the need of the time". A tenant asked for them to unblock a chimney which they had just blocked; PCHA refused on the grounds of cost, and yet their accounts show a gross operating profit of over £77,000 per day. These are a few of the very many reasons why they have failed ever to have a universal independent Tenants Satisfaction Survey. If they did, they would be soundly humiliated. PCHA and its founders have little to celebrate. If tenants were offered, as they should have been, an opportunity to take their tenancy and their home to another housing association, PCHA would be left with no more than a desk and a telephone that never rings. Yours sincerely,   Peter Rutherford Independent Federation of Genesis Residents, NW6.   Back to the IFGR web site Back to the WHHA/Pathmeads web site