Really support
Independent journalism
Our mission is to provide unbiased, fact-based journalism that holds power accountable and exposes the truth.
Every donation counts, whether it's $5 or $50.
Support us to deliver journalism without purpose.
Click here for details
Since moving to London in 2009, I've lived in around eight houses, surfed on four couches, and lived an extremely tough six months on an old, leaky boat floating on the city's canals.
I moved twice of my own volition. Believe me, I needed to get out of that floating tent for my sanity, but my nomadic lifestyle was born out of necessity more than choice. Landlords increased the rent on my filthy homes that were barely worth what I was paying to start with. Two of them evicted me so they could sell their properties. Short-term subleases ended. House shares were dissolved.
Every time I moved house I lost a lot of stuff – bedding, kitchen utensils, lamps, rugs – and I lost my vote.
A particularly difficult period was when I moved four times in seven months: I returned to London after a short holiday, lived on a friend's sofa, then moved into a permanent rental, then moved to a boat, then another sublease, then got evicted.
I literally had to move boats every two weeks and I was moving so often that most of the time I couldn't even remember my postcode, let alone register to vote with my local council, which meant that by the time the London Mayoral elections came around it was too late to register to vote.
But I wasn't alone. But that was of little comfort: according to the Electoral Commission, renters are the least likely group to register to vote, and the majority of London renters have changed their address more than three times in five years.
It's not easy for local governments to gently nudge renters either. In 2014, the UK replaced its traditional “household registration” system with an “individual electoral registration” system, where each individual is responsible for registering with their local electoral service. In practice, this means that 400 cash-strapped local authorities, with no cross-borough reach, must contact 46 million voters instead of 20 million households.
The Conservative government has made the situation worse by ignoring appeals to remove the barriers faced by homeless people. Under current rules, homeless people must print out and return a “local connections” form to their local council, rather than completing an online form. During my time traveling between four addresses, I could barely find anywhere to print a form, let alone do my laundry.
Meanwhile, the government is changing the law to make it easier for British expatriates to vote, regardless of how long they've lived outside the UK. The changes seem to favour the status quo, as renters and sofa surfers are more likely to vote Labour, while overseas pensioners tend to vote Conservative.
The problem is this: unless precarious tenants and those living the nomadic life on their couches and canals speak up, their problems will remain and the reasons behind their precarious living conditions will not change – particularly low wages, few rights as tenants, exorbitant house prices etc. One thing that will definitely change in the next 12 months is my address.