The Focus E15 campaign began unexpectedly in August 2013 when 29 young or expectant mothers from the Focus E15 hostel – myself included – were served notices to leave. We knew that if we wanted homes we could afford, we would have to move out of London – to Manchester, Hastings or Birmingham. That’s why we started to fight, but we soon realised that our stories were not unique; they were the tip of the London housing crisis iceberg.

After Newham council cut funding for the hostel we started writing letters to the council and East Thames housing association who managed it. We were told that there was no accommodation in London, which meant that the only choice we had was to get on trains to places we’d never been, hundreds of miles away from our families and support networks, and start our lives again there.

Soon after this news, we met members of the Revolutionary Communist Group handing out leaflets about the bedroom tax and told them about our situation. They invited us to their weekly street stall on Stratford Broadway, a site which has since become the backbone of the campaign over the past 16 months. Because of our street stall, people know where to find us and support for the campaign grows each week.

For more than a year we have been battling with Newham’s Labour council, one of many Labour-led councils that continue to turn their backs on their traditional support base during the housing crisis. When we confronted Newham mayor Robin Wales with our situation, he told us: “If you can’t afford to live in Newham, you can’t afford to live in Newham.” A year after our eviction we launched a political occupation of four flats on the nearby Carpenters estate, to highlight the more than 600 homes left empty for years, at a time when people are being forced out of the borough.

Following the action, Newham agreed to repopulate 40 homes on the estate, showing that when letters and polite requests don’t work, direct action does. Since the occupation we have been helping families get housed, stay housed and stop evictions. Sometimes this means joining them in a meeting or finding them a lawyer, sometimes it means peacefully preventing bailiffs from dragging them out on to the street and demanding the council rehouse them locally and immediately. As a campaign we have been disgusted to see the breadth of social cleansing taking place across the capital. It is obvious for all to see: giant glass buildings that no working-class person could ever hope to afford are replacing council estates, sold off to the highest bidder.

Everybody deserves a decent, secure home to live in. But even for those not forced out of London we are being made to compromise, with expensive private rentals, short-term contracts and terrible living conditions. Meanwhile, even offers of “affordable housing” still charge 80% of the market rate, some as high as £2,400 a month, more than most people’s monthly wage. We are living in one of the richest countries in the world, surrounded by homelessness, hunger and cold. People can’t afford to heat their homes in the winter and never have so many relied on food banks. This has got to change.

Recently, Zineb, a mother of three employed by Newham, came to us at the street stall. She had been evicted from her home and had spent the previous night sleeping on the floor of a police station with her children when the council explained that they could not house them within reach of her work or her children’s school. After a small protest to help her share her story with the media, Newham was able to offer the family a flat in the borough.

We meet people like Zineb every week, people who are struggling with skyrocketing market rents, fuel poverty, unimaginable overcrowding and forced relocation outside of the city they’ve always called home. That’s why our campaign can’t simply start and end in Newham and we will be leading the east London leg of the citywide March for Homes today. It is important we stand together in solidarity and remind one another that our struggles are not isolated. No one will represent you but yourself, so join us and stand for decent homes for all. This is the beginning of the end of the housing crisis!