Squatters take London's housing crisis into their own hands

By Suban Abdulla and Natalie Thomas

LONDON (Reuters) - In the shopping streets and housing estates of the south London town of Croydon, some once-derelict buildings are slowly coming back to life.

At a former school, peeling walls are getting a fresh coat of paint, and laundry hangs on a line to dry. Over at a disused youth centre, there is laughter in the gymnasium-turned-dormitory, and a vase of purple flowers decorates a scrubbed kitchen counter.

The Reclaim Croydon collective, a squatters group, has taken over disused commercial premises to provide beds for the homeless, saying it is providing a community-based solution to a broken housing market.

"The government is failing homeless people," said one of the youth centre's new occupants, who goes by the name Leaf.

Leaf, who comes from the city of Reading and is non-binary, said they had been living on the streets and in squats because rising rents had outstripped government welfare and housing benefits. Leaf argues that many of the country's disused and empty properties could be turned into homes.

"If the people in charge actually gave a damn about anyone who was struggling, they would make those houses habitable," Leaf said. "Homelessness is a direct political choice."

Like most of the squatters interviewed by Reuters, Leaf, 28, would only give one name, to avoid drawing the attention of authorities.

Britain has long lacked enough housing, but a 22% jump in private rents in England over the last five years has left growing numbers of people struggling to find anywhere to live. Housing routinely appears in the top five issues that pollsters report as the most important for voters ahead of Thursday's general election.

The high rents and unaffordable house prices have meant people in their 20s or 30s are still living at home with parents or in house shares. At the most acute end, growing numbers are sleeping on the streets and in empty buildings, official figures show.

Public services in areas such as mental health have taken a hit from a decade of tight spending controls and growing demand, adding to the numbers slipping into homelessness, policy analysts and homeless advocates say.

Studies have found that ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected, with a 2022 report published by the Centre for Homelessness Impact charity showing that Black people were more than three times as likely to become homeless as white people in England.

Britain's biggest political parties did not make people available to discuss the housing crisis. However, both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party have pledged to tackle the issue by building more homes.

Labour, which is widely expected to win the election by a landslide, has said it would overhaul the country's planning system - often cited as overly complex and tilted against developers - and build 1.5 million homes over the next five years.

The Conservatives struggled to reform the planning system in the face of opposition from rural lawmakers and residents seeking to preserve green spaces and the original character of their neighbourhoods.

VACANT BUILDINGS

Housing campaigners have long argued that local councils should also utilise some of the roughly 700,000 vacant homes in England as a cheaper and faster solution.

"We're seeing more and more councils saying that temporary accommodation budgets for people that they theoretically have a legal duty to house are literally bankrupting them," said Chris Bailey, campaign manager for the Action on Empty Homes charity.

London Councils, an umbrella group representing the capital's local authorities, said the number presenting as homeless increased by 14.5% in the year to September 2023, with more than 175,000 homeless and living in temporary accommodation.

The cost of providing temporary housing in hotels, hostels or house shares rose by almost 40% last year to 90 million pounds ($113.54 million) a month, London Councils said.

Since 2018, eight councils - including Birmingham, Europe's largest local authority - have effectively declared themselves bankrupt.

Croydon Council - which declared it was unable to balance its books three times between 2020 and 2022 - spent more than 38.6 million pounds on temporary accommodation in the 2022-2023 financial year, not including any rent it gets back.

The council increased council tax - paid by residents - by 15% last year. It has also raised taxes on empty properties and second homes.

"It is hoped this will help to bring more empty homes back into use," the council said in a statement to Reuters.

The council wants to sell the occupied youth centre, which closed during the pandemic.

"We are making arrangements to repossess and secure this publicly owned building," it said.

Croydon - a large, built-up town with high-rise apartment and office blocks - had nearly 4,000 disused properties in October 2023, according to government data.

In the main shopping streets, shuttered businesses and posters advertising closing down sales are tucked among discount stores and a bustling market.

Alex, 28, a Reclaim Croydon organiser, said the group has refurbished around 30 buildings since it was formed last year, providing homes for over 100 people.

The group first ensures the buildings are vacant and have basic necessities like running water and electricity, he said. It then carries out repairs to make them habitable, which can include installing showers and kitchens, fixing leaks and removing mould.

The people who live in the buildings come from diverse backgrounds. Squatters at the youth centre with Leaf include a student and a transport worker who couldn't keep up with London rents.

Some are trying to escape the streets, others the upheaval of living in different temporary accommodations.

"A lot of people in Britain just get stuck in homelessness limbo, and they prefer to stay with us," Alex said.

They include Oumnia, 35, who said she was offered temporary accommodation in a hostel while she waited for her asylum application to be processed.

"It was a small room, and I have two children. It's not enough for us, and it's not healthy," said Oumnia, who declined to give further details about herself.

Reclaim Croydon found the family a room in an ornate, red brick building that had once housed a legal firm.

But within months of their arrival, an eviction notice was pasted on the door. Reuters could not reach the owners for comment; no contact details are listed on the land deed.

The half a dozen squatters packed up and moved into a small, sparsely furnished former girl's school that had stood empty since 2020.

Oumnia and her young children now live in an outbuilding with its own small kitchen and bathroom. In the evenings, residents sometimes gather in a former gymnasium to share a plate of chicken stew and bread.

It's unclear how long they can stay, however. The building is owned by Barnardo's, a children's charity.

"We are aware that a Barnardo's-owned property in Croydon is currently being occupied by squatters. We are working with local authorities to safely resolve the situation," the group said without elaborating.

SQUATTING CULTURE

A squatting culture has existed in Britain for hundreds of years. After World War Two, many soldiers and their families moved into empty military bases. In the 1970s, the movement took on a political edge as anarchists took over buildings in acts of protest.

Since 2012, it has been illegal to squat in residential buildings. But commercial squatting is not a criminal offence, provided no damage is done, and the squatters leave when ordered by a court.

The British Landlords Association estimates squatting in commercial buildings is up by almost 300% since December 2021, a problem its head, Sajjad Ahmad, blames on government policies rather than squatters.

"A lot of these people that you see on the street or squatting in buildings are not drug addicts," Ahmad said. "You speak to them, and you realise that some of them are qualified individuals who still hold down jobs."

Britain embarked on a home-building drive after World War Two, with much of its public housing stock built for lower-income families.

But some of that was sold off and not replaced under a policy by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to allow people to buy their homes from local authorities.

In 2017, the government said 300,000 new homes were needed a year in England by the mid-2020s to fix the affordability squeeze. Since then, fewer than 250,000 have been built on average each year. Some owners have also been happy to leave properties empty, benefiting from rising valuations.

Squatters told Reuters that finding a room had been transformational, restoring a sense of dignity even if they were afraid of being thrown out.

"It was the first time I felt like a human being since coming to the UK," said Youness Elaissaoui, a 49-year-old Moroccan immigrant who spent time at the school and former solicitor's office.

Leaf, who walks with a cane, said finding a community of squatters was life-saving.

"I'm disabled. I wouldn't survive on the streets. Simple as that," they said.

($1 = 0.7927 pounds)

(Additional reporting by Hannah McKay; Writing by Suban Abdulla; Editing by Kate Holton and Alexandra Zavis)