Join HASL and PILC’s email protest here calling on Southwark council to stop penalising families living in overcrowded housing.

Southwark council have been telling families in some of the most severely overcrowded housing in the borough that their overcrowding was a ‘deliberate act’ by the families. These cruel decisions deny these families band 1 on the housing register which would allow them the urgent move into the permanent, more spacious council housing they need.

As well as punishing these families by refusing them the urgent re-housing they need, due to their apparent ‘deliberate act’, these decisions are also offensive, harmful and deeply distressing.

It is widely accepted that the causes of the housing crisis, where there are over 3.6 million people living in overcrowded homes, are high private rents, benefit cuts and a lack of family sized council homes but for some reason, Southwark council are choosing to ignore…