The CIH cannot represent us …

The Chartered Institute of Housing cannot and will not represent the needs of black and minority-ethnic people (21 May, page 13). The specialist group assembled by the CIH to front its report was not representative of BME organisations so the report itself is an effort to influence government policy while not recognising the white-dominated CIH's own BME strategies.

The report does not reflect the needs and aspirations of the grass-roots BME sector and it says nothing and does nothing for my association and the communities we have to influence and serve.

Neither the CIH nor the researchers have understood the role played by racism. The Federation of Black Housing Organisations, on the other hand, has always had its feet on the ground and was never co-opted into the system. What we need is a report that cuts out all the bull in strategies and diversity and confronts racism, which is at the centre of engagement in all forms. Economic racism is now high on the agenda, where resources are released to the selected few.

The government should be funding the FBHO directly to conduct meaningful research so that it can reach parts that the CIH cannot – that's the way to get genuine policy change in the BME sector.