Homelessness in the Black Community in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Greenwich

Executive Summary
The bare necessities for survival as humans are food, water, clothing, sleep, and shelter. It is sad to note that in the UK many people struggle to meet these basic needs especially shelter. According to Government statistics in Summer 2022, 59% of people in temporary accommodation across England are in London. The data is staggering with London residents experiencing worst outcomes compared to other cities in England.

The number of households living in temporary accommodation in the UK has reached its highest level since 2005, with more than 100,000 households affected across England. Almost 60% of these households are in London, including 75,580 children.

Households in temporary accommodation (England), House of Commons Library report

African Development and Advocacy Centre, AFRIDAC as a Black advocacy organisation in London became increasing concerned about homelessness as more of our service users were either already homeless or about to become homeless. With so much data about homelessness, we wanted to narrow it down to how many Black people were homeless in specific London boroughs. Early 2023, we did a Freedom of Information request to 10 London boroughs with highest number of Black people – Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Croydon, Newham, Brent, Hackney, Enfield, Greenwich, and Haringey. After several months of waiting, we got information back from 4 boroughs, Hackney, Newham, Greenwich and Lewisham.

This report will be presenting the data as a comparative analysis of the four boroughs and a few case studies from our service users. The report has been written by our volunteer, Tamesha with support from all team members. This a synopsis as we are working to release a fuller report later this year.

Oladapo Awosokanre
Executive Director
African Development and Advocacy Centre, AFRIDAC
April 2024

Click the below link to download the full report