Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City tells the story of eight low-income families and their landlords. He argues that poverty is a billion-pound business. Slum landlords, trailer park owners, bailiffs, and storage companies are all getting rich on money paid to them by the poor themselves or the state on their behalf. They get rich by making the lives of the poor worse and perpetuating poverty.
It is a chilling read, but it has helped me to understand what has happened in South Bermondsey, Southwark, where a group of investors are seeking to displace 182 long term tenants and convert their homes into super-profitable Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs).
One of our local ward councillors, Andy Bates, has written about the underlying mechanisms that have caused the crisis on our estate. Read the full piece here:
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