BY Jemilat Nasiru
Samson Folarin, a postgraduate student of investigative journalism at City University of London, says he encountered racism and fraudsters while searching for accommodation in the UK.
Folarin won the prestigious Chevening scholarship and left Nigeria for the UK in 2023 for advanced studies.
In an opinion piece titled ‘I searched for somewhere to live in London – and found racists and fraudsters’, Folarin said he had no idea it would be that costly living in a cosmopolitan city like London.
Folarin said he spent “as much as £118 per week on train travel” during his house search, and when he was on the brink of homelessness, he considered a shared apartment on Spareroom with a Ghanian family.
According to him, after spending £21 travelling from Brighton to the Gatwick Airport, and trekking for 30 minutes to inspect the space, the inhabitant, an elderly woman, rejected him because he is Nigerian.
“No, I don’t want Nigerians in my house,” Folarin recounted her as saying, and that her son who lived with her could not convince her otherwise.
Folarin said “white landlords and agents” did not respond to his messages on online platforms.
He further said he found a studio in Croydon “with no wiggle room for body scrubbing in the bathroom” listed at £1,100 — more than a year’s rent for a 3-bedroom apartment in Lagos.
“I was close to tears as I converted the rate to my home currency. At £1,100 per month (about N1,600,000 at the time), I could afford to pay a year’s rent for a three-bedroom flat in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, and still have N600,0000 left,” he said.
He said in another instance, he encountered fraudsters who demanded “£200 for commission” before he could inspect an apartment.
“These experiences are not peculiar to me. Aside from discrimination and fraud that seemed pervasive in the housing sector, people in London go through tough times dealing with dodgy landlords who demand high rates. A report from Savills in November showed that London rents had risen by 31% since 2021 and that Londoners now spend as much as 42.5% of their income on rent, which is double the average rate for the rest of England,” he wrote.
“This takes a serious toll on family life. Schools are closing down because of the drop in the number of pupils. Birth rates are falling and families are leaving London. Couples are trying to manage resources by not having kids.”
Folarin called on the government to “intervene in the housing sector by building more houses”. This, according to him, is the “simple solution”.
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