Soaring rents and house prices are depriving young families of the chance of a stable home and destroying long-established communities as people are forced to move out of the city

At a recent, church-run mayoral hustings in London, candidates were asked to outline how they would tackle the city’s housing crisis. After Labour’s Sadiq Khan, the Conservatives’ Zac Goldsmith, Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon et al. had finished speaking, the 200-strong audience – most of them evangelical Christians – were asked to raise their hands if they were confident that any of the candidates could deliver a solution. Five people did.

Whoever wins the election on 5 May, housing problems will be high on their agenda. Figures from City Hall planners obtained by the Green Party group on the London Assembly show that 214 estate regeneration schemes – which often involve the demolition of so-called sink estates – currently have planning permission. These will result in a net loss of 7,326 social rented homes.

For a generation of Londoners, owning a home in the capital has become an impossible dream: according to the housing charity Shelter, by 2020, first-time buyers will need an income of £106,000 to buy in London. Prices are already 10.06 times the average annual salary. This generation – “Generation Rent” – faces an unstable future of private tenancy, at the mercy of landlords in a city where the cost of renting is predicted to rise by 25 per cent over the next five years.