Based on her own experience of navigating through a complex web of inequalities, London Mayoral candidate Natalie Campbell wants to ensure that the capital can now deliver a safe foundation for the next generation - as she sets out her plan to end youth homelessness and improve temporary accommodation in London.
Note: The Social Market Foundation has invited all London mayoral candidates to contribute an essay on a policy topic of their choice. To be clear, this does not represent an endorsement of any candidate in the election. The SMF remains strictly cross-party.
There are two things I believe to be true in life:
- That a warm bed and a full fridge are underrated essentials.
- That a warm bed and a full fridge are what most people need to live well.
There are two things I’ve heard frequently, that I do not believe to be true:
- That the Mayor of London has no power.
- That you can’t change the status quo or a system quickly/at all.
Growing up working class in North West London, I had no choice but to live through a complex web of inequalities. No matter what happened in the outside world – and sometimes inside my family home – I never questioned whether or not I deserved to ‘succeed’. My Maslow’s basics were consistently met. I always had a hot meal and a warm bed. These two things built a foundation that ensured my sense of agency could grow, and I could look out, visualise my future life and know I deserved a place in the world.
I’m running for Mayor of London because this positive way of thinking has become a luxury for so many children across the city. This loss of hope is a sign that London has failed its people – that a Mayor has failed its young. London Councils has announced that there is ‘at least one homeless child in every London classroom’. This amounts to around 85,000 young lives being at risk of never reaching their potential because they have been a victim of knife crime, poor health including mental health and/or long-term homelessness.
I was raised by my grandparents. They were foster carers and took in children in acute need, sometimes parents too, in the middle of the night. I went to a state school and did well, but it was at a time when gun crime was at an all-time high. I know boys who were shot and stabbed and I know boys who held knives and guns in their hands.
And still, there was hope.
There was leadership.
There was political will.
As the next Mayor of London, I would end youth homelessness through the introduction of a Tourist Levy; a good night’s sleep for a good night’s sleep. A small tax on hotel stays would provide the necessary investment needed for high quality temporary accommodation with wrap-around care. The sector has created a roadmap for a way out – but they aren’t being listened to. I fully endorse the Social Market Foundation’s ‘Good Homes, Good Landlords’ kitemark as an approach to making sure we have an equitable rental market and through new Mayoral Development Corporations I would co-invest in affordable build-to-rent developments to stabilise the market over time. I live in one right now, I know it works.
When we start to think the Mayor of a global city with a £17 billion budget has no power –because they seem to say it themselves and push accountability and blame for people’s suffering onto others – then we have a problem. When the people you meet have zero faith that the system will change, in fact, they believe that it will only get worse – we have a problem. When politics takes a divide-and-scorch-the-earth approach to maintain power – we have a problem.
I’m running for Mayor of London because I can see what is right in front of my eyes. The problems can be fixed. The problems are all political choices. We don’t have good homes and happy neighbourhoods, or safe streets and local police or well communities that have access to better lives. And we don’t have these things because we do not have leadership making the right calls on the essentials. Provide free school meals, yes, but let’s look at ways to lift the working poor out of poverty so they can afford food and electricity to make breakfast.
What Londoners want is simple, yet their needs are consistently unfulfilled. There is no performance or ‘jazz hands’ PR that can change this fact. The only thing that can change it is a change in leadership. This much I know to be true.