I wonder how many different thoughts
nice and how interesting that can
possibly be so right I’m not offended
I’m quite accustomed to that dinner
party uncomfortable pause and people ask
me what I do I’ve been working in social
housing for almost 20 years and a lot of
those years in finance so that’s
something I’m quite used to having said
that after the tragic events that Gwen
fell in June this year people have a lot
to say about what I do for a living and
actually there are quite a lot of
opinions the government this is probably
my first experience of having been so
directly connected to something that is
really high-profile and highly
publicized and it’s been an odd
experience for me and it’s shown me how
key we can all be to jump to conclusions
to jump to stereotypes we have opinions
about who lives in affordable housing
about where people come from about how
housing associations maintain their
homes
and I’ve learned to trust very little
about the conclusions that the media
come to about human suffering in crisis
I’m not here to promote social housing
or housing as soon as you’ll be housing
associations you’ll be really glad to
know that but I am here to make a case
for us to think twice about the
assumptions we make about people and how
they live we all come with these things
with our own personal experiences and
that might be how we grow up or who we
know what our parents think or who we
sit next to at a dinner party but you
don’t need me to tell you that there are
times so many times when those
assumptions can just be off point my dad
used to say that we all have a haze
through which we see life and he said to
me only you’ve got that haze and you
can’t see life through anybody else’s
and nobody else can see in life through
yours but I’m here to argue that we
should try that we should try to see
life through other people’s things and
other people’s experiences and that we
need to bridge those gaps in
understanding that’s so prevalent and
destructive in society today now no
matter how strongly I feel about social
housing today my introduction to housing
actually wasn’t as philanthropic as you
might think
I came from a place thirty years ago
okay from the states next doesn’t have
the strong system that we have here the
sort of the strong social system we
don’t have and didn’t have consistent
access to how things consist
access to health care that you have here
and the world I came from all you had to
do was to work hard and get a job and
you don’t need social housing I remember
when I first met my husband who’s
British and we were going for a walk and
I’m he was telling me all about the
social system every year in the state of
housing today and this was during my 30
years ago and I’m and I’ve seen housing
and I’ll never forget the way he stopped
in his tracks
and he looked at me he said of course I
have
and he said Rachel are you I’ve been
kidding me he was so shocked but I
hadn’t had that experience and I felt so
naive I was so embarrassed but my haze
was bitch social housing wasn’t needed
that it wasn’t something that if we
aren’t our system in the States was so
divided the social system is so divided
and it is still today so my haze was
something completely different and that
meant that I was hugely embarrassed by
the situation I can tell you so I’m
going to tell you a little bit about how
my haze has evolved over the last 30
years how I went from somebody who
didn’t know a lot about social system
and the need for it to somebody who does
my I don’t know how much you know about
the Midwest of America but my dad came
from a really remote town in Nebraska
and he used a career in the army to get
out of Nebraska and leave a narrow life
there’s a one that he thought was gonna
be much more interesting and prosperous
so for me that was a shining example if
somebody who could just pull themselves
up by their bootstraps and it’s an
important point because that was one of
my case that anybody could pursue a life
more prosperous and interesting if they
just put their mind to it
the other thing about my dad is that
although he was quite a traditional man
he was determined that his little girl
was not going to do stuff in life just
because she was a girl so when I said to
him dad I really wanted to teach her he
said that’s great really that’s a great
profession what why you don’t you want
to be a headmaster actually be a nurse
he’s a fantastic Rachel but is there a
reason why you don’t want to be a doctor
so he was quite a tough taskmaster I can
tell you but while he was encouraging me
to be all I could be my mom was saying
Rachel you follow your heart you do
something that you love she was what you
would probably call a typical 1950s
housewife she was she had a good degree
but she really valued but she did not
want to have a big career she was she
had a she decided after him after a
while that she wanted to do some do some
extra work she wanted us to have things
in life we didn’t have so she got a
part-time job and she then decided to
get a masters degree and she eventually
worked her way up to be the director
within a major US government agency and
that was quite something in the 70s and
80s I can tell you and it was also quite
something because she was quite a woman
of her time and my father was and while
she was doing that she was doing all the
cooking she was doing she was making
sure you have food on the table
she was making sure we had our lunch
money so when people ask me why it is
that I am so determined to have a
successful career I say my dad told me
and my mom shoot me
have you said all that training is an
accountant wasn’t exactly what they had
in mind bearing in mind that my parents
were very supportive of my art history
degree when I told my dad that I was
going to study become an accountant he
put his head in his hands and said like
flour child is gonna be a bean counter
and there’s a reason I chose that agency
and I did that long after I got married
and had children and I did it out of
necessity and it’s an important point
because it makes up a very important
layer of my case I came from a
comfortable average American suburb we
didn’t want for much was anything
flashed but I had never really
experienced financial hardship and when
I came over to this country thirty years
ago it’s just a suitcase in my hand and
my early twenties my husband and I
decided that we needed to rural Devon
and with all the idealism of youth we
decided we were going to start a travel
company so we got a business plan
together
we went to the bank
and the bank managers were very
impressed with that so they gave us this
lens and just to add to madness we
decided to start a family
timing is everything in life and just
after a we took our lens out the Gulf
War started Americans stopped traveling
and Eddin prices rose jobs are hard to
come by and our lives were called in so
we ended up young and inexperienced and
in a bit better with nothing
so the first time in my life I
experienced a financial difficulty big
time
I remember the constant worry of how
expensive it was to put petrol in our
car in a car that was so old we weren’t
sure what’s gonna make the journey look
at the first part they repossessed I
remember we were in rented accommodation
of course and never really knowing what
the landlord was gonna decide to sell a
house so we never knew whether we were
gonna get kicked out or not
and the benefit system in the job market
at that time in Devon or such that with
two people without much qualifications
it was really difficult to find a job
and for many years with two young
children and very limited opportunities
there was not a minute
in any day when we did not worry about
money or what their future held now the
other gap is you can imagine that I had
to bridge but not just the size of the
ocean from the United States to the UK
it was actually the million miles away
culturally that rural Devon was from
Washington DC in addition to all this of
a way of life differences that you would
expect I found it really hard to make
friends I found the people in this
country actually quite closed I mean you
think all Americans really bouncing in
your face and faith and all that stuff
but I tell you what I really missed that
warmth during that time and I know now
that people just didn’t know how to take
me but at the time it felt like people
just seemed to like me I remember going
to a drinks party with my husband when
we first moved to Devon it’s quite a
smart phrase party it was quite sort of
hunting shooting fishing brigade
and you know I mean what I went into
this party and I really struggled
talking to people people just didn’t
want to talk to me you know what it’s
like when you’re talking to people
they’re looking over your shoulder
trying to see if they can find someone
else to talk to
I know I’ve done it so I know I could
read the signs and I just couldn’t work
out what was going on this knife until I
was talking to a girl and she stopped me
mid-sentence and she said oh you’re
American and she said oh and she turned
to her friend since the dawning she’s
American and they all had a bit of a
giggle
oh we thought you were from Devon so my
heart arse made them think that was
about Devon Ian and they finished busing
we thought needed invited a stablehand I
need you not it was a really interesting
introduction the social system in this
country I can tell you now bear with me
I’ve just got one more layer of haze to
share with you and I’m gonna go full
circle and tell you a bit about how my
husband and I got ourselves out of the
mess that we got ourselves into for
several years with two young children
and limited job opportunities we both
knew that we were never going to get
anywhere if we didn’t get some
qualifications I’ve been doing some
part-time bookkeeping so I’m captain so
I wasn’t following my hearts and it
wasn’t my dream career I did it because
I wanted to get out of the mess that we
got into and being an accountant I
thought was a meal ticket we agreed that
I would work full time and that kids
stay at home with the kids
lady our strengths to say so I got the
job as an analyst in a Housing
Association again not my dream career it
is now but it wasn’t then I did it how
to possess
we took shifts on weekends my husband
was working the morning and I look after
the kids and yesterday I picked the
other way around and I have to say it
was one of the hardest times of my life
but it is one time in our lives that
really binds us together as a true
partnership a proper partnership as they
would say in general and it’s it’s time
about which we are really proud
it’s probably hard to imagine but in the
1990s in Devon being a working mom was
really weird I was the only working mom
at the kids school but you can imagine
what people thought of it
my husband he was a combination of a
sort of a rock star a freak depending on
who you were talking to I could bore you
with hours of stories about how people
thought but he did was so amazing and I
think it was amazing but it’s amazing
whether you do it at the Manor is a
woman so we had to let that one settle
for a bit I remember a time when I was
at the grocery store and what they need
the checkout kept taking the bags for me
in and kept packing the form and give me
the bags I was starting to like a spare
part that was my job and so and he said
give it to me she wouldn’t give it to
him and finally she handed it to me she
looked at me and she said oh so it tells
you a little bit about what she thought
about men’s abilities what was her age
but those difficult years were full of
life lessons for me lessons that I take
in to life every day lessons about
gender stereotypes that I hope help me
to support bright young women who just
need a confidence boost lessons that my
husband and I both hope mean that our
children will not go into their
long-term relationships with any
assumptions about what role the woman
who play
lessons about cultural device I mean
let’s be honest being American is a tiny
cultural divide really it is compared to
what some people have to go through when
they come here and I have such
admiration for people who come to this
country when English isn’t even their
first language and make a real success
of their lives I also had real lessons
about how financial hardship can happen
to anyone
and it’s why what we do at capitalist is
so important to me that we make a
difference to people who are worried
about money every single day that we
provide homes and opportunities for
people for young people so that they can
take advantage of opportunities in life
without worrying that they’re going to
be kicked out of their house because
their mother’s gonna sell it and that
we’re providing support to people who
don’t have the advantages that I have I
had I was able to get myself out of a
mess because I had a lot of tools in my
toolbox and there are a lot of people in
this life that don’t have those
advantages I still have to check the
assumptions that I make about people and
events every single day I ask myself
what would I think about the situation
and the people who live in bentonville
if I didn’t work in housing everyone in
this room has got their own Hayes and
they bring their own experience to their
life in my experience maybe no more i
opening or different than anybody else’s
so I stand here asking for nothing more
than that we all use those experiences
in our lives and reach beyond those
experiences to understand people to
understand things that are different and
people that are different to question
our temptation to jump on stereotypes
and generalizations
and that we take whatever steps possible
to bridge the gaps of understanding that
are so prevalent and disrupted in
today’s society at a time when the world
has never needed that more
nice and how interesting that can
possibly be so right I’m not offended
I’m quite accustomed to that dinner
party uncomfortable pause and people ask
me what I do I’ve been working in social
housing for almost 20 years and a lot of
those years in finance so that’s
something I’m quite used to having said
that after the tragic events that Gwen
fell in June this year people have a lot
to say about what I do for a living and
actually there are quite a lot of
opinions the government this is probably
my first experience of having been so
directly connected to something that is
really high-profile and highly
publicized and it’s been an odd
experience for me and it’s shown me how
key we can all be to jump to conclusions
to jump to stereotypes we have opinions
about who lives in affordable housing
about where people come from about how
housing associations maintain their
homes
and I’ve learned to trust very little
about the conclusions that the media
come to about human suffering in crisis
I’m not here to promote social housing
or housing as soon as you’ll be housing
associations you’ll be really glad to
know that but I am here to make a case
for us to think twice about the
assumptions we make about people and how
they live we all come with these things
with our own personal experiences and
that might be how we grow up or who we
know what our parents think or who we
sit next to at a dinner party but you
don’t need me to tell you that there are
times so many times when those
assumptions can just be off point my dad
used to say that we all have a haze
through which we see life and he said to
me only you’ve got that haze and you
can’t see life through anybody else’s
and nobody else can see in life through
yours but I’m here to argue that we
should try that we should try to see
life through other people’s things and
other people’s experiences and that we
need to bridge those gaps in
understanding that’s so prevalent and
destructive in society today now no
matter how strongly I feel about social
housing today my introduction to housing
actually wasn’t as philanthropic as you
might think
I came from a place thirty years ago
okay from the states next doesn’t have
the strong system that we have here the
sort of the strong social system we
don’t have and didn’t have consistent
access to how things consist
access to health care that you have here
and the world I came from all you had to
do was to work hard and get a job and
you don’t need social housing I remember
when I first met my husband who’s
British and we were going for a walk and
I’m he was telling me all about the
social system every year in the state of
housing today and this was during my 30
years ago and I’m and I’ve seen housing
and I’ll never forget the way he stopped
in his tracks
and he looked at me he said of course I
have
and he said Rachel are you I’ve been
kidding me he was so shocked but I
hadn’t had that experience and I felt so
naive I was so embarrassed but my haze
was bitch social housing wasn’t needed
that it wasn’t something that if we
aren’t our system in the States was so
divided the social system is so divided
and it is still today so my haze was
something completely different and that
meant that I was hugely embarrassed by
the situation I can tell you so I’m
going to tell you a little bit about how
my haze has evolved over the last 30
years how I went from somebody who
didn’t know a lot about social system
and the need for it to somebody who does
my I don’t know how much you know about
the Midwest of America but my dad came
from a really remote town in Nebraska
and he used a career in the army to get
out of Nebraska and leave a narrow life
there’s a one that he thought was gonna
be much more interesting and prosperous
so for me that was a shining example if
somebody who could just pull themselves
up by their bootstraps and it’s an
important point because that was one of
my case that anybody could pursue a life
more prosperous and interesting if they
just put their mind to it
the other thing about my dad is that
although he was quite a traditional man
he was determined that his little girl
was not going to do stuff in life just
because she was a girl so when I said to
him dad I really wanted to teach her he
said that’s great really that’s a great
profession what why you don’t you want
to be a headmaster actually be a nurse
he’s a fantastic Rachel but is there a
reason why you don’t want to be a doctor
so he was quite a tough taskmaster I can
tell you but while he was encouraging me
to be all I could be my mom was saying
Rachel you follow your heart you do
something that you love she was what you
would probably call a typical 1950s
housewife she was she had a good degree
but she really valued but she did not
want to have a big career she was she
had a she decided after him after a
while that she wanted to do some do some
extra work she wanted us to have things
in life we didn’t have so she got a
part-time job and she then decided to
get a masters degree and she eventually
worked her way up to be the director
within a major US government agency and
that was quite something in the 70s and
80s I can tell you and it was also quite
something because she was quite a woman
of her time and my father was and while
she was doing that she was doing all the
cooking she was doing she was making
sure you have food on the table
she was making sure we had our lunch
money so when people ask me why it is
that I am so determined to have a
successful career I say my dad told me
and my mom shoot me
have you said all that training is an
accountant wasn’t exactly what they had
in mind bearing in mind that my parents
were very supportive of my art history
degree when I told my dad that I was
going to study become an accountant he
put his head in his hands and said like
flour child is gonna be a bean counter
and there’s a reason I chose that agency
and I did that long after I got married
and had children and I did it out of
necessity and it’s an important point
because it makes up a very important
layer of my case I came from a
comfortable average American suburb we
didn’t want for much was anything
flashed but I had never really
experienced financial hardship and when
I came over to this country thirty years
ago it’s just a suitcase in my hand and
my early twenties my husband and I
decided that we needed to rural Devon
and with all the idealism of youth we
decided we were going to start a travel
company so we got a business plan
together
we went to the bank
and the bank managers were very
impressed with that so they gave us this
lens and just to add to madness we
decided to start a family
timing is everything in life and just
after a we took our lens out the Gulf
War started Americans stopped traveling
and Eddin prices rose jobs are hard to
come by and our lives were called in so
we ended up young and inexperienced and
in a bit better with nothing
so the first time in my life I
experienced a financial difficulty big
time
I remember the constant worry of how
expensive it was to put petrol in our
car in a car that was so old we weren’t
sure what’s gonna make the journey look
at the first part they repossessed I
remember we were in rented accommodation
of course and never really knowing what
the landlord was gonna decide to sell a
house so we never knew whether we were
gonna get kicked out or not
and the benefit system in the job market
at that time in Devon or such that with
two people without much qualifications
it was really difficult to find a job
and for many years with two young
children and very limited opportunities
there was not a minute
in any day when we did not worry about
money or what their future held now the
other gap is you can imagine that I had
to bridge but not just the size of the
ocean from the United States to the UK
it was actually the million miles away
culturally that rural Devon was from
Washington DC in addition to all this of
a way of life differences that you would
expect I found it really hard to make
friends I found the people in this
country actually quite closed I mean you
think all Americans really bouncing in
your face and faith and all that stuff
but I tell you what I really missed that
warmth during that time and I know now
that people just didn’t know how to take
me but at the time it felt like people
just seemed to like me I remember going
to a drinks party with my husband when
we first moved to Devon it’s quite a
smart phrase party it was quite sort of
hunting shooting fishing brigade
and you know I mean what I went into
this party and I really struggled
talking to people people just didn’t
want to talk to me you know what it’s
like when you’re talking to people
they’re looking over your shoulder
trying to see if they can find someone
else to talk to
I know I’ve done it so I know I could
read the signs and I just couldn’t work
out what was going on this knife until I
was talking to a girl and she stopped me
mid-sentence and she said oh you’re
American and she said oh and she turned
to her friend since the dawning she’s
American and they all had a bit of a
giggle
oh we thought you were from Devon so my
heart arse made them think that was
about Devon Ian and they finished busing
we thought needed invited a stablehand I
need you not it was a really interesting
introduction the social system in this
country I can tell you now bear with me
I’ve just got one more layer of haze to
share with you and I’m gonna go full
circle and tell you a bit about how my
husband and I got ourselves out of the
mess that we got ourselves into for
several years with two young children
and limited job opportunities we both
knew that we were never going to get
anywhere if we didn’t get some
qualifications I’ve been doing some
part-time bookkeeping so I’m captain so
I wasn’t following my hearts and it
wasn’t my dream career I did it because
I wanted to get out of the mess that we
got into and being an accountant I
thought was a meal ticket we agreed that
I would work full time and that kids
stay at home with the kids
lady our strengths to say so I got the
job as an analyst in a Housing
Association again not my dream career it
is now but it wasn’t then I did it how
to possess
we took shifts on weekends my husband
was working the morning and I look after
the kids and yesterday I picked the
other way around and I have to say it
was one of the hardest times of my life
but it is one time in our lives that
really binds us together as a true
partnership a proper partnership as they
would say in general and it’s it’s time
about which we are really proud
it’s probably hard to imagine but in the
1990s in Devon being a working mom was
really weird I was the only working mom
at the kids school but you can imagine
what people thought of it
my husband he was a combination of a
sort of a rock star a freak depending on
who you were talking to I could bore you
with hours of stories about how people
thought but he did was so amazing and I
think it was amazing but it’s amazing
whether you do it at the Manor is a
woman so we had to let that one settle
for a bit I remember a time when I was
at the grocery store and what they need
the checkout kept taking the bags for me
in and kept packing the form and give me
the bags I was starting to like a spare
part that was my job and so and he said
give it to me she wouldn’t give it to
him and finally she handed it to me she
looked at me and she said oh so it tells
you a little bit about what she thought
about men’s abilities what was her age
but those difficult years were full of
life lessons for me lessons that I take
in to life every day lessons about
gender stereotypes that I hope help me
to support bright young women who just
need a confidence boost lessons that my
husband and I both hope mean that our
children will not go into their
long-term relationships with any
assumptions about what role the woman
who play
lessons about cultural device I mean
let’s be honest being American is a tiny
cultural divide really it is compared to
what some people have to go through when
they come here and I have such
admiration for people who come to this
country when English isn’t even their
first language and make a real success
of their lives I also had real lessons
about how financial hardship can happen
to anyone
and it’s why what we do at capitalist is
so important to me that we make a
difference to people who are worried
about money every single day that we
provide homes and opportunities for
people for young people so that they can
take advantage of opportunities in life
without worrying that they’re going to
be kicked out of their house because
their mother’s gonna sell it and that
we’re providing support to people who
don’t have the advantages that I have I
had I was able to get myself out of a
mess because I had a lot of tools in my
toolbox and there are a lot of people in
this life that don’t have those
advantages I still have to check the
assumptions that I make about people and
events every single day I ask myself
what would I think about the situation
and the people who live in bentonville
if I didn’t work in housing everyone in
this room has got their own Hayes and
they bring their own experience to their
life in my experience maybe no more i
opening or different than anybody else’s
so I stand here asking for nothing more
than that we all use those experiences
in our lives and reach beyond those
experiences to understand people to
understand things that are different and
people that are different to question
our temptation to jump on stereotypes
and generalizations
and that we take whatever steps possible
to bridge the gaps of understanding that
are so prevalent and disrupted in
today’s society at a time when the world
has never needed that more
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