Homesick: How Housing Broke London and How to Fix It
Sep 2025 · Simon and Schuster
Ebook
352
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
infoThis book will become available on September 25, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
From the author of the Orwell Prize-winner SHOW ME THE BODIES: HOW WE LET GRENFELL HAPPEN, the gripping story of how housing defines a city's past, present and future
'Apps set the gold standard with his Grenfell coverage. With Homesick, he dismantles the sham of UK housing policy – razor-sharp, stylish, and morally unflinching.' Darren McGarvey
London is broken. Only those with vast cash deposits can get on the property ladder, private rents have spiralled out of control and the wait for social housing is measured in decades. Once vibrant communities are being uprooted, schools are closing down and homelessness is rampant.
It was not always like this. In the 1980s, builders and nurses could afford family-sized homes, there was abundant social housing and long-term security for private renters.
Tracing the last forty years of housing policy, Peter Apps examines this transformation, following a diverse group of Londoners as their fortunes rise and fall across the decades amid the economic forces sweeping through the city. With clear-eyed urgency, he reveals what will happen when a generation of renters retires and climate change brings fire and flood to a city unprepared for extremes.
He also gives us reason to hope, exploring the ways London can transform again: from a market for private profit to a place that once more offers permanence, safety and opportunity for its citizens. A place to call home.
'Apps set the gold standard with his Grenfell coverage. With Homesick, he dismantles the sham of UK housing policy – razor-sharp, stylish, and morally unflinching.' Darren McGarvey
London is broken. Only those with vast cash deposits can get on the property ladder, private rents have spiralled out of control and the wait for social housing is measured in decades. Once vibrant communities are being uprooted, schools are closing down and homelessness is rampant.
It was not always like this. In the 1980s, builders and nurses could afford family-sized homes, there was abundant social housing and long-term security for private renters.
Tracing the last forty years of housing policy, Peter Apps examines this transformation, following a diverse group of Londoners as their fortunes rise and fall across the decades amid the economic forces sweeping through the city. With clear-eyed urgency, he reveals what will happen when a generation of renters retires and climate change brings fire and flood to a city unprepared for extremes.
He also gives us reason to hope, exploring the ways London can transform again: from a market for private profit to a place that once more offers permanence, safety and opportunity for its citizens. A place to call home.
About the author
Peter Apps is an award-winning journalist and Deputy Editor at Inside Housing. His previous book, Show Me the Bodies, won the Orwell Prize for political writing and his coverage of the Grenfell public inquiry has received widespread acclaim. He lives in London.
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