London’s housing system breaches basic standards of humanity, with racism embedded at its core.

Homes, not harm evidences the staggering housing crisis behind everyday life in London, and across the UK. 

Through in-depth interviews across the capital, the report details a two-tier housing system, where those with access to capital become home owners and gain security, versus those who are imprisoned by precarious housing, unaffordable rent, insecure tenancies and poor housing conditions. 

For the latter, insecure housing conditions trap entire communities, and generations of communities, into poor health, educational disadvantage, and poverty. People of colour in the UK are disproportionately affected by this, particularly those living in social or council housing who often endure the poorest living conditions, which negatively impact both their mental and physical health and hinder their financial stability. Without secure, decent housing, pathways to good health and wealth are blocked, making the gaps bigger.

The psychological toll of, as one of our research participants put it, “so much racism all in one go”, is immense. An accumulation of racist encounters, whether from neighbours, landlords and local councils, erodes mental and physical wellbeing, which traps certain communities into seemingly endless cycles of poverty and neglect.

Racism isn’t an exception to the housing system, but sits embedded in its architecture and design.

We spoke to people across the London boroughs of Camden, Croydon, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets, who detail housing circumstances that have devastating knock on effects in their lives. They all share two common themes, that housing has become untethered from our need for home, and a sense of total powerlessness.

“To be honest with you, we are not living: we’re just surviving, trying to get to the next day, and the next. It’s been years now and I am not smiling that much.” - Nadine*

One of our research participants, Hassan*, has not bought any new clothing since 2018. Like many others we spoke to, Hassan has dealt with extortionate service charges for his heating and hot water bills. He told us:

“I came with the solution: switch off the meter. No heating, No water. So I am sitting in the cold weather, in the flat, with no heat and no hot water, except every Thursday night. I put the heating and hot water on for two hours so I can have a proper wash for Jumu’ah, for the prayer on Friday. That’s what I’ve been doing. So I don’t have to pay the expensive bill, because I can’t afford it.”

Through qualitative discussions like these with people across London, Homes, not harm adds to a mountain of evidence that UK housing is at breaking point. From a shortage of social housing, to unaffordably high rents, instability in the private rented sector, poorly built homes, and an increase in hidden and street homelessness, what people are now living through is the preventable outcome of decades of policies that consider homes as assets, instead of essential foundations of wellbeing and security.

As one of participants, Gabriel* put it:

“There is a lack of housing for everyone, and the government’s approach is to open up for developers, rather than the people who actually need the houses. So then there is a lot of housing for those who have a lot of money, and there’s even less for who doesn’t.”

The constant strain of fighting simply for safe, secure, decent and genuinely affordable housing is stripping away energy, hope and the agency needed to fight for change. In this way, the housing system not only denies prosperity: it actively disables the capacity to pursue it.

In Homes, not harm we make a series of recommendations to address the current crisis, and the root causes of the broken housing system. 

These include:

• Rent freezes and rent controls
• Abolish local authority and housing associations’ ability to levy service charges
• Unfreezing the Local Housing Allowance
• Tax reforms to reverse property-related wealth inequalities
• Amends to Section 6B of the Renters’ Rights Act, to safeguard against eviction when ‘major works’ are carried out, and prevent tenants from having the cost of those works passed to them
• Recommendations to increase affordable and social housing stock
• Establishing a national commission on racial discrimination in the housing system.

Read the full report at the link below. Report illustrations by Julia Miranda.

*All names mentioned in the report have been changed.