This article originally appeared in London Centric on 26 March. You can read in full here.

In the final weeks before the government bans no-fault evictions, there have been high-profile examples of London’s private renters being ejected from their homes, most notably by Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital.

But in a dark twist, one London council is contributing to the problem by indirectly evicting dozens of longstanding residents from a block of flats so it can use their homes to house homeless Londoners from another part of the city.

Private renters in Garden Court, a collection of 32 flats overlooking the gates of Kew Gardens in south west London, were recently given two months’ notice to leave their homes. Their landlord has struck a £16m deal to sell the block of flats to Labour-run Westminster Council for use as temporary accommodation units – on the condition it was delivered without existing tenants.

One resident told London Centric that Richmond Council has now offered to house her “hundreds of miles away” from London, all so Westminster can use her existing flat to house their homeless residents.

“They don’t care about people like us,” she said of Westminster Council. “This will shorten my life, the anxiety and the hopelessness of it all.”

Other residents, such as Susu Myat, 57, and Justin King, 61, have been in their flat for 16 years. “Living around here, we’re all like a family. We take care of each other.”

Both had recently returned to university, but feared they’d have to give up their studies to focus on finding somewhere new to live. Myat, a gastroenterologist, is due to sit a specialist exam in the upcoming weeks. “My studies are not going anywhere. I can’t think about anything.”

Westminster’s Conservative opposition leader Paul Swaddle called it an “act of staggering hypocrisy” by his council’s existing Labour leadership: “There is no justification for throwing people, including elderly and vulnerable residents, out of their homes at two months' notice.”

It’s all part of the bizarre economics of temporary accommodation in London, where the legal duty of councils to house some homeless people has collided with the exploding cost of finding any temporary accommodation in the capital.

Whereas in the past councils would provide new social housing, now they’re panic buying existing blocks of flats.

Deputy leader of Richmond Council Jim Millard told London Centric that Westminster is creating “a revolving door of evictions” that pushes the problem of homelessness further out of the capital’s centre.

“What may well happen is that people who have been living at Garden Court for years will find themselves presenting as temporary accommodation to Richmond Council,” said the Liberal Democrat politician.

This is how, from Southwark to Lambeth, from Richmond to Brent, you might find your neighbouring block of flats being turned into temporary accommodation for the displaced residents of a different borough.

This article originally appeared in London Centric on 26 March. You can read in full here.