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The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has made a repeated call for a rent freeze this winter, following grim data that reveals that rough sleeping has gone up by 20 percent in the capital, prompted in part by the cost-of-living crisis.
He called on the government to force private landlords to not increase rents for tenants. ‘Extraordinary financial pressures are putting the poorest Londoners at growing risk of homelessness with the number of people sleeping rough already up by a fifth year on year.
‘We continue to see a revolving door of people ending up homeless as a result of this escalating cost-of-living crisis. This cannot be allowed to continue. This new government must act now to prevent the circumstances that lead to people sleeping rough before thousands more are forced to face a winter on the streets.’
Khan called for a rent freeze back in August, as stats showed that private sector rents had increased in London by an average of 15 percent in just one year, with some boroughs seeing hikes of nearly 20 percent. In a tweet, he said: ‘This is a disgrace. Rents are soaring while landlords profit. I’ve repeatedly asked the Govt to let me freeze rents, saving Londoners £2,988 over two years. With the cost-of-living crisis raging, this is more urgent than ever. The Govt must act.’
The mayor has made sky-high rents in the UK capital a major strand of his campaigning over the years, citing other world cities such as Berlin and New York which have intervened to control rents. Londoners spend an average of 40 percent of their income on rent. With the added financial pressure from the soaring cost of living this is proving simply unsustainable for many residents.
Disturbingly, the sharp rise in London rough sleepers comes as record numbers of street homeless are being found shelter, suggesting the problem is even worse than it appears on paper.
Allow a rent freeze, or see people freeze? Over to you, Prime Minister.
Kids in Tower Hamlets are protesting about the removal of their ‘school street’.
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