Hello, my name is Fateha and I am a young person growing up in London and I am going to tell you my personal story.

I recently experienced a downfall with not only my health but housing too and due to it I left education and employment. Our landlord asked us to find a new property, and with my health not being great this was a difficult task but I never imagined it would turn out the way it did.

It was amazing to see how everything was interlinked and the support network available was poorly. I had little help from the local services despite repeatedly asking for help. We had choices which were that we could leave London as housing outside of London is more affordable, refuse to leave the current property or go private. It was not a choice but rather it felt as they imposing what they felt right for us. It was not about growth, equality or unity. We did not feel part of a community that would aid each other in building a bright future. At that point, I realised how unfair London can be to those who are young people and their families that come from the lower classes and lack the knowledge that the upper classes would have at their hands.

The outcome was that we were homeless and the search felt never-ending. However I don’t know if it was luck or hard work but we managed to find a house to live. It may not be the best of places, but we are all together and that is a huge thing for me.

London house prices leapt by 4.2% in April 2014 as stated in the Guardian and in my opinion as the country develops this will continue to increase. This will leave a lot of people helpless regardless of ‘Help to Buy’ schemes as it does not tackle the root cause of inconsistency and fairness in the housing sector. Landlords should have stricter rules, tenants should be given long terms contracts for stability and taxing the more wealthy people are some of the actions required to tackle the unfairness.

In my eyes, London is a maze and we all are trying to overcome everything thrown at us to reach the destination of our dreams. The different paths in the maze range from education, health, employment, local services and housing.

The moral of my story is that there is a huge division for those that can afford and for those that cannot. It may have been my luck and perseverance but we will never know.  As Professor Danny Dorling notes in his book All That Is Solid: “No other city in the developed world contains such a deep – and growing – chasm between rich and poor.” No other city “is surrounded by an entire region where the average house price exceeds £200,000″. Yet our capital contains the largest number of people in poverty of any city in Western Europe.

Is it fair that house prices are so high? Is fair that that we divide people? Is it fair that young people and the future generations have to grow up in an unfair London?

Hello, my name is Francis Augusto, and I’m here along with Fateha representing Talent Match London Youth Board. Talent Match London is a programme ran by London Youth. When I was 14, I wasn’t the best behaved kid in school, nor was I very clever. Work experience was coming up and I had no clue what I wanted to do, but knew I wanted to do something great! I went to careers advisor to ask for advice. Along with unenthusiastic about school, being clueless of what I wanted to do, I also faced the barrier of my advisor. I was only given the options of a law firm, estate agency, retail or a restaurant and follow what everyone else were going to do. I hated not being able to make my own choice, it was unfair that I was categorised, more importantly not being seen as an individual really annoyed me. At a very young age, I was vigilant to the unfairness of London labour market, and class system of jobs that were ‘fit you’.

I had to make a choice. Do I conform and do what the school and careers advisor told me to do or something else? Law and estate agency were too academic and boring, whilst the retail and restaurant seemed like they wouldn’t challenge at all. I felt that I already knew how to swindle people and negotiate; I was doing this at school. Often young people are categorised and not given the opportunities to choose their path and truly own their support system. Coincidently, as I was struggling to choose what I would do for work experience, I had been going to a youth centre near my house. The support that my youth worker and other support workers gave to my friends was incredible. I was able to change and have some incredible experiences, so I decided that that’s what I want to do, instead of a stuffy law firm. I didn’t want to deliver and serve pizza, I wanted to serve people and change lives.

For a week, I pestered the Centre manager to let me volunteer and write a letter to my school. After three consecutive days, he gave in and did it. It took a little arm twisting and threatening the school with my absence, but they gave in – I still have the letter at home, as a way to show how this all started. I made my choice, I chose to a volunteer youth leader. I chose to make my own way and live with what happens. This was only possible by the confidence and fairness that was instilled in me by an adult who believed in me.

After the work experience, I continued volunteering, and then became a qualified youth worker. I worked in various youth work settings: as a sessional youth worker, facilitator and in pupil referral units. I have been able to support various young people, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I  think it’s unfair that young people have their autonomy and independence striped when it comes to making choices in life. Instead of supporting individual’s career paths, schools lack quality career advice and only work to benefit.