In London average private sector rents are now £1,038 per month (46% above the UK average) and the average rental price of a three-bedroom home in London is over £20,000 per year. The average London house price is £388,000 (72% higher than the UK average). In the last ten years, house prices have increased by 94%, while wages have only risen by 29%.
In all but two of London’s 33 boroughs at least 1 in 20 people are on council housing waiting lists, and across London as a whole more than 1 in 10 Londoners are on waiting lists. In Newham the crisis is most severe with nearly 1 in 4 residents on the council’s housing waiting list.
Nationally there are just over 1.8 million households (4.5 million people) on waiting lists. London accounts for 354,000 and 886,000 of those respective figures. The government is cutting and capping benefits, while preventing significant minimum wage increases (just 1.8% in October and a freeze for workers aged under 21).
As a result of the increased cost of living, of which housing costs is a major part, working class people are being forced into deeper poverty. A new report commissioned by Save the Children has revealed that one in eight of Britain’s poorest children are going without at least one hot meal a day, 15% have to go without new shoes, 14% are denied a warm winter coat and 23% are missing out on school trips because their parents can’t afford them. 10% of children can’t afford to celebrate their birthdays.
Those that are forced to take over empty properties to house themselves now face criminalisation. On 1 September 2012 the new law aimed at criminalising squatting in residential properties came into effect. The new offence, introduced under clause 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, will be punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment and fines up to £5,000 in England and Wales. On enacting this new law, Justice Minister Crispin Blunt announced that ‘by making this change, we can slam shut the door on squatters once and for all’. There are 20,000 estimated squatters in the UK who could be displaced as a result of this law. Squatting is the final option for people who can’t afford to rent in the housing ‘market’ where profit comes before people.
People are resisting and Squatters Action for Secure Homes (SQUASH), which has campaigned against the new law, has set up an Eviction Resistance Network (see evictionresistance.blogspot.co.uk)
Barnaby Mitchel
The fight against housing cuts is linked to the fight against cuts in public services and activists from SQUASH are among those who have occupied Friern Barnet library in north London, which shut down earlier in the year because of public sector cuts. (Of 4,612 public libraries nationally, 270 are now closed or due to be closed as a result of public sector cuts.) Working with the local community they have successfully reopened the library.
