Black's Blog

Jimmy Black highlights the importance of bridging the technology gap if people who are homeless or in temporary accommodation are to access vital services.

Jimmy Black, former Housing Convener at Dundee City Council, has been campaigning to stop the demolition of historic tenements in Blackness Road. Previously he wrote that a consultation exercise had been misreported to councillors. Now he says Freedom of Information has thrown up new contradictions.

Jimmy Black Architect Malcolm Fraser did the impossible at the first Andrew Nicoll Lecture (September 22). He made some revolutionary ideas seem sensible.

Jimmy Black Getting the creative digital sector together with charities was the theme of Shelter Scotland’s Building Digital Communities Event on July 19. I went to hear more about the new Shelter ‘I Need Help’ button, which will link homeless people and others in need to Shelter’s extensive

Jimmy Black In sheltered housing you get a pendant to call the warden. Outside sheltered housing, you get telecare. Two very different things, bought by two very different departments, under two very different procurement regimes?

Jimmy Black Former convener of housing at Dundee City Council, Jimmy Black muses about Shelter Scotland’s recent "hackathon".

Jimmy Black Stairs. A complete nuisance if you have furniture to shift, babies to carry, shopping to bring home. That’s all of us at one time or another. And they’re a nuisance for disabled people too.

Jimmy Black Sheltered housing generally involves a warden call system. If tenants press their buttons when the wardens have gone home, the alarm may go through to the council’s community alarm system. Two systems? Why does there need to be two systems which effectively do the same thing?

Jimmy Black Councillor Black reflects on self inflicted silly season stories...

Jimmy Black You are looking for your first rented flat, and a landlord says "give me £200 and I'll keep this flat for you. But back out and the money's mine". Would you know this was an illegal premium? If the landlord then said: "Leave the place in good order and I'll give you back a month's rent"

Jimmy Black Cllr Jimmy Black counts his profits

Jimmy Black Cllr Black looks back to 1947

Jimmy Black Cllr Jimmy Black reflects on the death of a housing officer

When Wendy Alexander was the Scottish Communities Minister, she proposed to give housing association tenants the Right to Buy. I was at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations at the time. Along with many colleagues and my boss David Orr, now at the National Housing Federation, we fought it

Cllr Jimmy Black attends a seminar in Perth to launch a series of good practice books on travellers' sites. Theory is easy, real decisions are not. The Scottish Government is working on a new strategy for travelling people; COSLA is wholly behind it; and everyone will pay lip service to it. In short