These tenants are left homeless to house homeless people

Zakolska said, “I opened that email and I was like, ‘Oh, no.’ The one thing I care most about, I think is happening. So it was a shock and I was just overwhelmed and sad and angry and confused and I didn’t know why it was happening.

“We are fighting so hard to stay because we have made this apartment a home. The council does not speak to us at all. But the agent said they believed the council wanted to convert it into temporary housing, perhaps social housing. But how? This flat came unfurnished so all the furniture is mine and my partners and we have really made it a home, we have a cat who has just got used to this flat. This is like a complete upheaval in our lives.”

Zakolska and her partner both came to the UK from Poland in 2020 to study, and her partner is currently working as a barman while completing his Masters.

Zakolska was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2022, but grew plants in her home to supplement her income.

She fears having to move out of the area to find a suitable home in her price range will disrupt her life and has managed to negotiate with the council to delay her eviction on December 7. Zakolska insists she will continue to fight to keep her home.

“I checked but there is literally nothing. We should move out of the neighborhood or apply for the council’s homelessness prevention bond,” Zakolska said.

“The council basically have a duty to stop us from becoming homeless, but they are the ones causing homelessness.”

She added: “I feel like my fear of dealing with this is action and just doing everything in my power to stop this. I am very motivated, but it was very stressful. I refuse to accept the decision and will do everything in my power to stop this.

“I can be strong because I have the community around me. I have people who similarly believe that this is an injustice.”

Former local Green Party councilor Peter Elliott has already been evicted from his property on the Central Hill estate.

He couch-surfed with a friend after leaving his home last July when his landlord sold the property back to the council.

Elliott, who is the Green Party candidate for Dulwich and West Norwood at the upcoming general election, visited his old home on local election polling day to find it closed. It now sits empty, one of 146 vacant properties on the estates.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in anti-social behavior around the empty houses that we have with unlicensed music events and things like that,” Elliott said.

“They also started moving people who were in temporary housing, and so sometimes these were people who had been evicted from other parts of the neighborhood and were just using the Central Hill property as a dumping ground.”

Like Zakolska, Elliott also accused Lambeth Council of moving tenants to make way for people already experiencing homelessness.

The Green Party backer also criticized the Labor council for issuing no-fault eviction notices at a time when the national Labor Party has vowed to cancel them.

The Tenant Reform Bill was supposed to get rid of no-fault evictions for good until Rishi Sunak’s election announcement stopped it. This, despite it being a 2019 Tory manifesto promise.

If, as expected, Keir Starmer wins the race for Number 10, Labor has promised to stamp out no-fault evictions.

“The only reason they say they’re moving people now is because they have to put people in temporary housing in them,” Elliott said. “But you’re creating a problem by evicting all these people, most of them are going to become homeless and you’re just creating a bigger problem for yourself as a council, so it doesn’t make any sense. “

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He added: “They are campaigning against Section 21 notices but their council is handing out dozens of Section 21 notices. So nothing makes sense and in the middle of a housing and cost of living crisis this is the last time people have to to look for a home.”

Another resident, Vid, told the Big Issue that he moved into a flat in Cressingham Gardens with his partner in December but found out two months later that he would have to leave the property at the end of his tenancy in November.

This after the 27-year-old has already spent more than £1,000 on furnishing the property.

“I think we were shocked to hear that,” he said. “We invested quite a bit of money buying furniture and things because my partner and I were just moving in together and we were hoping to make this house a home to live in for the foreseeable future.”

He added: “We are quite annoyed by the communication we received because there was no indication that we should leave the property.

“If we had known that, number one, the council was going to own us and number two, that this decision was going to be made, then we would have thought twice about investing so much money and moving here.”

There are a record number of people living in temporary accommodation in England, with the latest official statistics revealing that 112,000 households are now in a non-permanent home.

This is an increase of 10% in the past year alone and has seen several warnings from councils across the country that rising housing costs are pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy.

The housing crisis is particularly acute in London, and Lambeth has had its own challenges in recent years.

A 2022 review by former civil servant Lord Kerslake found that Homes for Lambeth – the housebuilding arm of the council – had started building just 65 homes since it was set up in 2017.

That review recommended that Homes for Lambeth’s operations be brought back to the council as soon as possible. Following a review, the authority decided that the property, previously rented on the private market, could be repurposed for people in greatest housing need.

Lambeth Council said there was never any intention of the homes being left on the private market long-term, but tenants have accused them of a lack of transparency about their plans, leaving them in limbo.

The council said the homes are former council properties sold through the Right to Buy which have been bought back by the local authority.

“Agencies managing tenancies on behalf of Homes for Lambeth have contacted tenants to let them know that their tenancy will not be renewed and, where appropriate, to offer support to help them find alternative accommodation,” said a carrier by word of mouth.

Protesters also occupied the council office in January in a call for action after a one-year-old was hospitalized six times in one year because of the conditions in her home.

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