The past two weeks have given me the most exciting political experience of my life. I have been part of the Focus E15 Mums occupation in Stratford, Newham, east London. With the shadow of the Olympic stadium looming over us, we have reclaimed a block of empty flats on an almost totally abandoned council estate. In Bow county court last Thursday, Newham council, no doubt rattled by constant bad press, agreed to let us leave on our terms by 7 October. But although we are ending the occupation, the battle continues. Focus E15 will fight until all evictions from the Carpenters estate are stopped and these beautiful homes are filled with people holding secure, lifelong tenancies.

This story is bigger than one housing estate. This is about a housing crisis affecting everyone except the well-heeled, particularly London’s poorest residents. I became involved with the Focus E15 campaign after my mum was threatened with eviction due to constant benefit sanctions and the bedroom tax – as I don’t live with her anymore. (At the age of 26, living independently from my family seems reasonable.) While some families such as the mothers of Focus E15 are desperate for council housing, other families, like mine, are facing mounting pressure to get out. How has this situation arisen?

Ultimately perhaps because our leaders don’t believe in the principle of social housing. The selling of council estates, the imposition of the bedroom tax and introduction of right to buy serve to put our housing needs in the hands of private landlords. As a result, our living situations have become unaffordable, precarious and downright terrifying. With our addresses changing every few months, being pushed further and further out of our own communities, a good education for children, employment prospects and plans for the future all seem a thing of the past.

The frankly offensive response from Mayor Robin Wales has upset me on a personal level. I was at school with his eldest daughter and attended sleepovers at the family home. As a kid I respected him as a community leader; the Labour party was on our side. Now I’m left wondering what has happened on his own journey that leaves him now screaming at a homeless single mother.

Newham’s Labour council seems totally unable to justify why it has left hundreds of publicly owned properties to rot while it ships families to bed and breakfasts in Manchester. We know it wants to sell this estate to private developers for flats we could never afford .

This campaign has forged unbreakable links not only with residents on the estate, but with other groups such as Guinness Trust AST tenants campaign in Brixton, who are being evicted from their housing association to make way for trendy shops and luxury apartments. From Newham to Brixton and all over London, it’s been the same old story, but now it has a new twist. To quote one resident: “If you lot have been able to take this gaff for two weeks, why the hell should we have to leave our homes?”

With a lot of nerve, the support of thousands of people and media attention across the world, a group of mainly young, working-class women has put the political elite in its place. The age-old tactic of sticking together has come good and has given me all the hope in the world that we can win back Carpenters estate for the residents and put social housing back on the agenda.