This is Britain: Why can’t locals find a home in Margate?
A fixture of our streets, Big Issue vendors know what’s happening in our towns and cities. This is Britain through their eyes.
Recently, our vendors told us that Kent was struggling in the wake of the pandemic and a decade of austerity. We went to investigate.
In Margate, we found a town that feels pretty buoyant. But the culture-based regeneration of the town has left many people behind.
According to a 2021 study by researchers from the London School of Economics, Margate is notable for its “poverty-based polarisation”, with people divided into extremes of wealth and deprivation, and very few in the middle.
Large numbers of people moving to the town from London and elsewhere in the UK have pushed up property prices, leaving many locals struggling to find somewhere to live.
Margate resident Mark Stevenson, who sells The Big Issue in Canterbury, said: "Homelessness is definitely everywhere. Everywhere you look, there’s someone sleeping in some shop doorway.”
Read more at www.bigissue.com/
00:00 "Everywhere you look, there's someone sleeping in some shop doorway."
00:40 Why can’t locals find a home in Margate?
01:18 Homelessness is complex
02:26 Margate used to be a reasonably priced place to live
02:47 The Airbnb effect