The Agudas Israel Housing Association (AIHA) in London’s Stamford Hill area supplies 470 homes for rent with the caveat ‘consideration only to the Orthodox Jewish community’. A non-Jewish woman with four children who was seeking social housing challenged the policy.
In R (Z & Anor) v Hackney London Borough Council & Anor [2020] UKSC 40, however, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld earlier rulings that the policy was proportionate and lawful because it was intended to tackle social and economic disadvantage encountered by the Othodox Jewish Haredi Jews in the area.
Lord Sales, giving the lead judgment, said the charity’s housing stock amounted to ‘1% of the overall number of 47,000 units of general social needs housing in the council’s area’. The High Court had commented that positive discrimination by a larger housing association might not have been lawful.
Lord sales continued: ‘The Orthodox Jewish community tend to have large families and so have a greater need, as a community, for larger properties, including those with four bedrooms. AIHA’s stock of social housing has been developed with that in mind, so it has a proportionately greater share of the stock of larger properties available for social housing in Hackney.’
He referred to evidence given in the Divisional Court that there were high levels of poverty and deprivation in the community, that members need to remain close to each other, that the community is subjected to ‘widespread and increasing overt antisemitism’, and that the traditional clothing worn by members heightens their exposure to antisemitism. Moreover, the properties were designed with kosher kitchens, no television aerials and mezuzahs on communal doors.
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