If you’d walked around big London rail stations like Victoria before the pandemic, you’d have seen streets like dormitories, lined with people in sleeping bags.
Then, when the state wanted people off the streets during lockdowns, accommodation was miraculously found.
Now, around one in 50 living in London are thought to be homeless. The cross-party group London Councils estimates that nearly 170,000 people in the capital are living in hostels, bedsits, or temporary accommodation, a probable increase of 17,000 in a single year. The group thinks this includes over 83,000 children. Many more people are sofa-surfing or ‘roofless’, ie, sleeping rough.
So much for caring, sharing capitalism.