Perspectives on Housing

Perspectives is a 3-part series co-created with giffgaff, exploring the most important issues affecting young people today. We meet the individuals on the frontline and weigh up some of the self-made solutions they've adopted to deal these challenges.

London has always been a contested city. In its 2027-year history, it has been fought over by forces as strident as the Roman Empire, Viking raiding gangs, the Luftwaffe, Queen Boudica, peasants in revolt, Black Death-carrying rats, the flames of the Great Fire, William the Conqueror and gin.

Absent from the battle for London taking place today is the wanton, terrifying destruction perpetrated by most of those listed, but nevertheless it's a battle causing real damage to the community integration and nightlife that makes the English capital the world's greatest, most exciting city. Simply put, a lot of people are finding their lives crippled by spiralling rent fees, and stalled by impossible house prices. The tussle over who has the right to live in London has been played out thus far in courts of law and the Houses of Parliament, on threatened estates and at street protests, on social media and Newsnight. It's one that pitches the collective might of property developers, government planners, offshore wealth, ghost homes, "poor doors", monied gentrifiers and estate agents against the staying power of those looking to continue and carve out lives in London, despite the fact the costs of doing so seem to be accelerating beyond their means.

Given the bewildering media array vying for our attention spans 24 hours a day, it's a moment in history that has been and continues to be well storied, but at times it can be hard to detect rays of light for the underdog. In Perspectives On Housing, a new film by VICE and the mobile network giffgaff, alternative ways of living in London are explored in an optimistic light. In it, we meet characters like Lorenzo and Thomas, two 16-year-old musicians who moved to England from Brazil with their dad and ended up legally squatting a church in Borough with a cadre of like minded artists. Then there's Isobel, who lives in the now famous Peanut Factory warehouse in Hackney Wick, and friends Tony and Tutti, who run their own avant-garde hairdressing business from a converted caravan in the playground of an old primary school in Deptford.

The film is great, but it couldn't possibly cover every conceivable route out of the lunatic swamp that is the capital's current housing market. But for any Londoner feeling the pinch, this should be a sign of encouragement. It means that there are other possibilities, and while these ways of life will not be for everyone, hope for those who are feeling priced out of city living comes at least in the ongoing ingenuity displayed by some of London's least conventional denizens.

One of those who are determined not to see London turned into a dystopian playground for the world's mega-rich is Katharine Hibbert, the founder of Dot Dot Dot. The company describe themselves as "property guardians" – a housing phenomena that has emerged in the last decade or so allowing people to live in unoccupied buildings for relatively cheap rent in return for their mere presence: the thinking being that this should ward off the threats of illegal squatters and dilapidation. In recent years, though, most property guardians operating in London have increased their rent rates to levels not far from those found in the traditional rental sector, leading to accusations that they are effectively running a more dangerous and less regulated analogue to it.

Dot Dot Dot, though, are different. "Dot Dot Dot is a social enterprise," they are keen to assert. "Our mission to use vacant properties to generate social value lies at the heart of what we do." As part of the agreement, their tenants are obliged to devote significant chunks of time to volunteer work in the local community. In return for this, their rent costs a fraction of what they'd expect to pay in the same postcode if they rented from a mainstream agent or landlord. (Although it might be tough to find equivalent properties – Dot Dot Dot guardians have ended up living not just in abandoned bungalows and boarded up houses, but empty mansions and closed down pubs.)

Dot Dot Dot tenants have spoken enthusiastically about the feeling of integration their work gives them – volunteering activities range from the fairly banal, such as litter-picking or garden work, to the more bespoke: hosting cocktail parties at care homes, teaching the homeless to juggle, that kind of thing. It's a setup that everyone seems to approve of; the guardians themselves, local residents and under-pressure bosses from local housing authorities have all talked warmly of the scheme. It certainly represents a sizeable shift away from the narrative of London natives and gentrifying interlopers being engaged in a kind of passive-aggressive turf war.

One group of people who aren't staking much claim for turf are those Londoners who choose to live on houseboats. Over 3,000 narrow boats are moored permanently or semi-permanently in the capital, and around a third of those are owned by people who've decided to make them their primary residence, traversing the city's 100-plus miles of waterways, going in search of new moorings every two weeks. It might seem surprising but again, a sense of community is what many of these full-time boat home owners are in search of.

"For four years I lived in southeast London – I didn't feel like part of a community really," says Tom Glencross, who's lived on a barge for ten months. "I lived, worked and studied there, but quite precariously a lot of the time, so there wasn't really much time to settle and feel 'at home'. Since living as a boater amongst other boaters, I've felt more part of a community in London than ever before."

For Glencross, there is a direct correlation between the housing crisis that forced him off of dry land and his decision to take to the water, alongside his partner, Cat.

"We knew a few people who were already doing it, and thought it would be fun to have a go," he explains. "Renting a dilapidated three-bed terrace that was property one of four in the portfolio of a landed-gentry landlord; with holes in the walls, damp problems and electricity and gas on a top-up card; sharing with seven people and paying an obscene amount of money each month for the privilege… after four consecutive years of this bullshit; it just didn't seem very fun any more."

Glencross says that he'd encourage others who might be hacked off with their living arrangements to look into houseboating as a way of life – as long as they didn't mind "using a camping toilet, downsizing all their possessions by about 90 percent and going without Netflix". His most rewarding moment thus far? "We found a fuel leak one day – we called some marinas and boat people, then ended up on a train to an industrial estate in Hemel Hempstead to get some engineers to make a new pipe for us. After celebrating with a Toby Carvery in the ground floor of a Travelodge on a ring-road in Hemel Hempstead, we got back to the boat, spent the afternoon fitting the new part, and when the engine started, it felt incredible."

Clearly, these lifestyles will not be for everyone, and the real concern is that native Londoners – those without the freedom or financial means to swap life on a council block for one on a houseboat, or in a volunteer-based guardian scheme, or on a converted Routemaster bus, as the filmmaker Kas Graham did for several years until 2012 – will continue to be forced out of the city they've always called home by a lack of affordable housing. London's communes have also been more or less wiped out in the past couple of years – the last remaining pair, in Kingston Upon Thames and Angel, finding themselves on the wrong end of rental disputes.

But these at least highlight what can be achieved for those who are able and willing with a bit of lateral thinking. What is clear is that the urge to live in London – to set up home in this ancient, surprising, bewildering city – is one that won't be surrendered without a fight. Lorenzo and Thomas, Tony and Tutti, Isobel and the other Londoners featured in Perspectives On Housing, are defiant living proof of that.

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