2.3 / London
Nobody had expected that in the midst of the greatest recession property prices in the UK would rise to a record high.
2.3.1 / London / Yield instead of living space
After 1945, Great Britain invested enormous sums in housing construction. Even in the early 1970s, half the British population lived in rented housing. Rents were affordable, there was comprehensive tenant protection. In 1988, this ended 
with
the Thatcher government. Social housing was privatized, rent controls were abolished and fixed-term tenancies of 6 or 12 months were allowed. At the end of the contract, tenants could be thrown out for no reason or have their rents increased at will.
Whole blocks of houses in central London stand empty. In the hands of foreign millionaires or globally operating investment funds, they serve as objects for speculation. Concentrated in posh neighbourhoods like Kensington, they however also cause prices to rise throughout the city. According to a survey, more than half the tenants no longer feel safe from eviction
2.3.2 / London / Big displacement of little people.
The eviction of poor families is moving forward. The London Borough of Camden is planning to relocate 761 needy households; Brent is looking at buying cheap social housing in the English Midlands for London families. Westminster and Croydon are considering similar measures. "The market rules everything. It determines where people live," says Rueben Taylor of the action group for Secure Homes “Squash”. Thus, fewer and fewer low-income people live in the city centre.
People on good salaries are increasingly having to arrange themselves in so-called forced housing communities, like Rosie Butcher. An abandoned industrial estate in east London. Cold corridors with countless blue-painted doors. Rosie Butcher comes out of the third from the left with a sleeping bag. She doesn't even have room for it in her flat. Her furniture and belongings are in a specially rented storage unit because the place she calls home is too tiny. 17m² + a mini-balcony -- together with her boyfriend. Another couple lives in the second room of the flat. And this is by no means an isolated case.Rosie works as a research assistant at the London School of Economics. Her starting salary is a third above the average. But rents are rising eight times as fast as salaries. The two couples pay the equivalent of almost €2,700 a month for this flat.
2.3.3 / London / Hackney
Until recently, the London district of Hackney was a typical working-class neighbourhood. Today there are antique shops and restaurants with organic gourmet burgers. Signs hang outside estate agencies: "No welfare recipients". "Only rich foreigners can afford the rents in Hackney," says Rosie Butcher. She is determined to stay. Because this is where her friends live, this is where she knows her MP and this is where she gets involved. She works as a volunteer at the housing and homelessness charity "Shelter". There she met Susan. Susan has just turned 50 and has been living with her son in a tiny flat in Tolsford Road for four months. She has always paid the rent on time and the only complaint she had was the mouldy bedroom wall. The landlord then gave them notice to renovate. She would be able move back in later, but for double the rent. Article 21 of the English Housing Ordinance allows landlords "no-fault evictions".
2.3.4 / London / Criminalization of squatting
The protest against this situation lasted until 2012 with countless squats. Since then, however, the penalty for squatting has been 6 months in prison or a £15,000 fine. The government thinks it is protecting the right to property. What it has achieved is that the 70,000 or so empty houses in London today have remained unused for years. At the same time, the number of homeless people, especially young homeless people, has doubled. Simon travels around on the night bus because he can't find anywhere to sleep. The tickets are paid for by the support organization New Horizon Youth Centre. It also gives out sleeping bags and offers the opportunity to take a shower and a hot breakfast.