A tide of gentrification is rising around the Bollo Brook youth centre in Acton, an area of west London troubled by gang problems and poverty. New flats costing up to £675,000 ring the centre’s temporary cabins, which more new homes will soon sweep away.

Unlike at least 81 other youth projects doomed by council cuts in the capital since 2012, the Bollo is not closing for good but will squeeze into a smaller space at the base of one of the new builds.

Being squeezed is a familiar theme for the young people who come here. They squeeze into overcrowded housing, their finances are squeezed through welfare cuts and their will to do the right thing is squeezed by peer pressure to get rich by any means necessary, including criminality.

The Bollo’s users – some homeless, others escaping from gang life – look up at the new flats knowing they have no hope of affording one. It is yet another sign to them they are being shut out of British society before they are even fully into adulthood.

A dozen of these people spent two hours this week at an event organised by the Equality Trust, spelling out the reality of their lives in one of the richest cities in the world to the United Nations rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, who will on Friday deliver his verdict on what he found during a two-week mission to Britain.

Their analysis drew connections between the pressure of consumer culture (“I know people whose families are using food banks and they are wearing Balenciaga caps”), the lure of criminality (“it’s hard to stay focused”), and the prohibitive cost of university (“how are we supposed to be able to afford that?”). Add to that collapsing mental health and suspicion of institutional racism and it was an instructive session for Alston’s inquiry into the impact of austerity in the UK.

Hashim Mohamed: ‘Home was crowded and wasn’t a good place to be.’

They described for Alston a glass ceiling – toughened by class attitudes and sometimes race – through which they feel they cannot break. But the standout issue was clear when Alston asked what they wanted from a youth centre.

Several answered straight back: “Space.” Domestic overcrowding – a function of London’s budget-busting rents and chronic shortage of social housing – is often the first domino to fall when the chaos of poverty begins.

“If people don’t have enough space at home, you need to be outside and you are exposed to the big world and all sorts of people and pick up bad habits,” said Sahra Roble, 19, from south Acton. “Anyone offering them a way of making money, they will take it. That’s why I think drugs and crime are on the increase. The way the system is set up continuously allows the gap between rich and poor to constantly keep getting bigger.”

Hashim Mohamed, 16, from Harrow, told Alston that overcrowding led him eventually to gang life. He was one of five members of his family living in a two-bedroom flat, with no internet connection.

“Home was crowded and wasn’t a good place to be,” he said. If he was not sleeping he went out and was in the neighbourhood and on the streets and eventually became involved in criminality.

Tayah, 19, told Alston: “Housing is the main source of stability for humans and when it is taken away or disrupted it affects your mental health, your social life, your education.”

Their youth club is in one of the 10% most deprived wards in England and its users look at the flats going up around them with bemusement and some despair. One described to Alston how buying a home was a “mythological”’ prospect, even if you were earning “big money like £30k”. In fact that is not big money in London, where the median salary in 2018 is £37,000 and the average house price is nearly £480,000.

Zahra Alipour: ‘The courses that were £1k are now £9k a year. How are we supposed to be able to afford that?’

“I say to myself why can’t we get all these houses they are building?” said Renee, 24, who is in her second year in an emergency hostel after being crammed into houses with up to three other families. “Why can’t they [the private buyers] wait instead?”

Zahra Alipour, 18, from Ealing, said: “We want to be able to afford things but how do you go about that? You can’t go to university. The courses that were £1k are now £9k a year. How are we supposed to be able to afford that?” Poverty, she agreed, was not only keeping people out of housing, it was fostering crime.

Ibrahim, 16, described gang culture as “a trap”. Resisting its embrace gets harder “as you get older and you see your family with no money, and you’ve got bailiffs coming to your house and you see your parents stressed.” A life of crime often starts, he said, simply because “you need to buy a meal”. He has been offered a place at a London university, but faces £40,000 in debt if he goes. He is watching his peers “looking for their ways”.

The search for better housing brings people into contact with a welfare system that seems to incentivise giving up on trying to build up education or a career, Tayah explained.

“During the 12 months I was made homeless. I was 18 and the council said I was not a priority. I was struggling with depression and anxiety and juggling work,” she said. “I was told that if I stop work and have a baby I would be more likely to get housing.”

Sahra Roble: ‘The gap between rich and poor is constantly keep getting bigger.’

A friend added: “The system makes you dependent. The more you make, the more they take.” She was referring to the system at a YMCA hostel where rent is linked to how much they earned in previous months.

They cannot afford to buy a home, or even consider saving for one, so splashing out on designer clothes is another way of achieving status. It means people in £150 Nike tracksuits might still be relying on food banks. Getting the money to pay for the clothes can encourage crime.

“There’s that sort of expectation that you’re wearing the same things and look a certain way,” Ziya, 17, said. “If you’re wearing old things that’s not on the latest trend, people really do look down on you. It’s almost as if other people’s opinions are more important than anything else. It’s about self-esteem.”

“If there wasn’t constant pressure to keep up, there would be less crime,” said Aiysha, 16.

This group had not experienced a powerful person listening to them before. As Alston wound up the meeting, with a half-joking apology that it had to be an old white man who would carry their message to government, the group agreed to seek a meeting at parliament to tell someone, anyone in power what is happening in their lives.