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Homelessness and Immigration

by: Ohood Abdulghaffar

Less than a month ago, a video investigation for Underground UK by Mimi Yates was doing the rounds on instagram. She spent 3 weeks visiting the tent villages popping up around central London. She found out something shocking: that many of them had jobs and the right to work here legally, mainly as food delivery drivers. While they delivered expensive meals to their customers, they relied on soup kitchens to survive. They had to pay to rent their bikes, pay to purchase their equipment such as the insulated branded bags and jackets and data for their phones - however, they were not getting paid enough to cover even shared rooms or hostel accommodation. Despite working up 70-90 hours a week, they were earning less than half the minimum wage, very often living off this, trying to save some for a deposit on a rental and also trying to send some abroad to support desperate dependants.