Lambeth's Empty Homes

Later that week, Jules showed me around Fenwick with Conor Crooks, 26, another tenant on the estate.

Just five months after they moved in, Conor and his partner say they were told their tenancy wouldn’t be renewed. 

Currently undertaking a PhD in Chemistry, Conor said the lack of secure housing has made it almost impossible for him to concentrate on his work. "I don’t know where we would go if we had to leave," he told me. "We would have to uproot not just our home but our whole lives."

By implying they’d have to leave without issuing an official section 21, Conor explained, the council can avoid paying homelessness prevention duties. "It’s not just that they want these houses back, it’s that they want these houses back without doing any of the work they are supposed to," he said.

Lambeth said its Homelessness Prevention Team will always conduct a priority need assessment to determine whether the council owes a main housing duty.

If so, Lambeth Council will consider whether the tenant should remain in their current property as "repurposed temporary accommodation" until long-term accommodation is found.

With every corner we turned, every block we walked past, there were more and more yellow doors. 

"We can see with our own eyes, living on these estates, that when people move out, their houses are boarded up and no one moves in there for months, even years, at a time," Conor told me. 

"A third of the housing in my little block has just been wiped off the map," he said. "It doesn’t feel very nice living next to a boarded-up house, it feels unsafe and I feel unwelcome in my own home."

One yellow door stood next to a Christmas wreath, another beside a large brick mural. Still, there was love and life. Still, it could all be destroyed. 

Jules pointed to one property a couple doors down from her flat. Her parcel was there, in a sort of package-purgatory, placed in what the postman thought was an alcove and boarded up just days later. 

I peeked through the keyhole, but I couldn’t see anything package-shaped. Just a few letters and a Labour leaflet.

"By refurbishing flats and leaving them to stand empty, they’re literally hemorrhaging money," Jules said.

She told me Lambeth Council wants to use Fenwick to house those in "highest priority need," but in order to do this, Jules said they’re effectively making hundreds of current tenants homeless. 

"I’ve always suffered from depression and anxiety, but in recent months, as this is getting more and more stressful, I’ve had to increase my medication to feel normal again. Not having that housing security makes your whole life feel insecure," Conor said. 

Jules, who interrupted her degree in Social Sciences following a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, was finally ready to return to university. Now, she’s had to extend that interruption even further while she fights for her right to shelter. 

"If we didn’t fight for this, then we would already be homeless right now because our original section 21 said that we were meant to move out on April 7th 2024," Jules said. "I wouldn’t have been able to write a dissertation from the street, I don’t know how that would have worked."