Airlink Hotel is an inconspicuous building filled with people from London’s broken housing system
At school time the hotel’s common area becomes filled with children playing together. Staff often tell them to be quiet as they run up and down the corridors.
Dinner times see the hundreds of people living in Airlink jostle for space to cook a meal for their families in the shared kitchen. The disabled and elderly can be seen struggling to get around without the hotel’s lift, which has been out of service for as long as they can remember.
The children have gotten to know the hotel’s nooks and crannies well. They explore secret routes and passages to get around the space quicker. Teenagers revise for their exams from the cramped rooms they share with their younger siblings.
Airlink Hotel, in Hayes, is an inconspicuous building but one that’s become all too familiar for its resident ‘guests’ – hundreds of people from London’s broken housing system who sought help from Ealing Council. In the hotel, which is around six miles from Ealing, are hundreds of people from the borough who have been evicted from their homes, and left living in cramped rooms filled with their life’s belongings as they await an offer of a permanent home at a time when they are like gold dust.
‘What is life all about?’
For his sixth birthday, TT’s son told her the thing he wanted most was a little brother or sister. When she became pregnant four years ago, the mum and son were excited to finally welcome a new member into their family. Four months later they were evicted from their private rented accommodation. The move was high-stress and the single pregnant mother, whose identity MyLondon has agreed to protect, was left to do almost all of the heavy lifting on her own, after Ealing Council told her they would not be able to offer her any assistance.
She lost her baby, leaving the family’s dream of a new sibling shattered. Four years later, TT is pregnant again, and has been evicted from her home again.
She told MyLondon: “It was something we had dreamed of. So, my pregnancy was a big joy and hope for us. I was very sad because giving my son a sibling is something we both wanted for years. There aren’t many friends or family to share these emotions with and you have to be strong for your child. However troubling it is, I had to make sure my son had everything he needed.”
TT’s son has been struggling to cope with the family’s housing situation. He often falls asleep on his hour-and-20-minute long journey from the hotel to his school. The pair have also been sharing a room for the first time – something the 11-year-old has been finding difficult to cope with. Just before the summer, things weighed so heavily on him he tried to end his own life – something his distraught mum only learned after the event.
“He’s started saying some things he’s never said before, like ‘what is life all about?’ It’s very sad,” said TT. “It really affects him because there’s no stability and it’s very important. My son is very attached to his friends, so I try to get him to stay as much as I can in the same community. So it’s really affecting him.”
Since MyLondon’s visit to Airlink, TT and her son have since been given an ‘upgrade’ – placed in a temporary studio apartment in Greenford. Her son’s journey to school now involves four bus changes and a walk down a lane through a forest. At the end of September, TT was let go from her job as teaching assistant, as she needs to take her son to and from the bus stop so he doesn’t have to complete this walk on his own.
The mum-to-be is worried about how their worsening housing situation is going to affect her son’s mental health and her pregnancy – especially when there will soon be three people sharing the small space.
“It’s like living with fear,” she said. “Deep down in me I feel like [something bad] could happen at any time. This time things are getting worse so he might not be reacting at the moment. But as winter approaches things will get worse.”
‘We haven’t had a real home in over a year’
Back in the hotel we meet *Aisha whose disabled son is often covered in bruises from falling down the stairs. The mum-of-six, who is using a different name, has been living in hotels for 14 months, after the family was evicted from their private rented accommodation in July last year.
She lost her job as a minibus driver for special needs children because Ealing Council decided to house the family in a Travelodge in Slough. They spent three months there, with no cooking facilities and living off takeaways, before being moved to the Airlink Hotel.
“It’s affecting me in so many ways – I lost my job last year. My legs have swollen up for no reason – it’s too much stress, I can’t sleep. I only sleep for two-to-three hours a night,” she says.
“I was told it would only be around a month – but it’s been 14 months and it’s too much. When I see my kids fighting I feel hopeless, I can’t do anything. I just give up and watch.”
Aisha shares a room with her 12-year-old son who has scoliosis, global development delay and liver disease. If anything hits his stomach, he will vomit up blood. Social services have said that the family needs to be placed in suitable housing for her son to recover after his upcoming operation.
“He’s been moving around since he was born – he’s tired of always changing around – he needs a disabled person’s room and toilet, so every house [we are offered] isn’t suitable,” she says.
Aisha’s older son, who is in Year 10, shares a separate room from his mum with two of his siblings. While living in Slough, he would wake up at 6am to go to school and arrive back at 5.30pm because of the traffic. He says he would often fall asleep in his lessons because of the long days.
“[Ealing Council] never really helped our family – we’ve not had a home in a year. I live in one room with three people – it’s hard to go to school and revise for my GCSEs. It’s those challenges that have really affected me,” he says.
Aisha is desperate to finally be given a council house so that her family can have stability. She wants to return to work as soon as she can. She said: “I just want to wake up in the morning and work. I hate staying home. The way Ealing Council has treated us is very bad. My son should be happy and have a suitable house.”
MyLondon understands the family has been placed back into the private rented sector since we spoke to them.
‘I’m still in chronic pain at night’
Rajinder Dhaliwal finds it hard to navigate the hotel from his wheelchair. The 45-year-old finds cooking the most difficult – he has been putting on weight as he is often unable to make himself healthy meals.
“It’s not the best. The lifestyle, the cooking facilities and getting out. Obviously I’d have stuff lower, it’s quite high up for me,” he says.
“I can’t really use the kitchen unless it’s a quiet time because it gets quite busy. With the other people in the kitchen it’s always busy – it’s trying to manoeuvre with my wheelchair and struggling to cook and prepare meals. It’s a lot of manoeuvring, it takes it out of me all day – if you go to the toilet a few times and shower – it takes it out of you,” he adds.
Rajinder ended up at Airlink after a series of unfortunate incidents. He ended up homeless after moving down to London from Birmingham to start a job in construction. After his start date was put off, he found himself homeless on the streets and fell into drug addiction. Just days after he lost his brother, he was hit by a BMW travelling at 65 miles-per-hour while crossing the road in Southall.
He was left with two broken ankles and a broken foot, with a later MRI scan revealing that he had two meniscus tears in his knees. The former construction worker is still waiting for surgery over a year after his accident in July last year.
“I’m still in chronic pain at night, it’s literally stabbing, electronic shock sensations, muscle spasms at night – sometimes I can see my legs just moving on their own,” he says.
Rajinder has been staying in hotels since he left rehabilitation in January, despite doctors recommending he be placed in a ground-floor flat. He would like to be placed in an NHS clinic so he can focus on his recovery, and then be housed in more suitable accommodation for his needs.
But for him, like the hundreds living in the transient, dysfunctional community at Airlink, he has no idea how long that will take.
An Ealing Council spokesperson said: “In recent years, we have seen unprecedented numbers of residents reaching out to ask for emergency help with accommodation. A perfect storm of increased demand and reduced supply has made our borough one of the least affordable places for housing in London.
“We are at the sharpest end of the national housing crisis, and with just over 4,000 local families on the waiting list for social housing, there simply aren’t enough affordable homes in the borough for everyone who needs one. That means homeless families who approach us usually have to spend time in temporary accommodation – often a bed and breakfast – while we work to find them a longer-term home.
“We are working hard to drive down the numbers of people in temporary accommodation and getting families into more suitable accommodation instead. For example, we are bringing empty council homes back to use as quickly as possible, offering households secure tenancies in them. We’re also actively expanding the number of affordable homes available, by directly building them ourselves, by securing them at other developments through our planning system, and by buying homes to let to council tenants, including 290 in recent deals in Acton and Southall.”
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