Something big is happening on the streets of London right now. Something that is getting bigger and noisier by the day. After years of rhetoric about ‘the housing crisis’, words are finally becoming action – direct action, by radical protest groups.

For years, London has been at the epicentre of the UK’s crisis of unaffordable housing. But over the past 18 months, the response has shifted, and the residents of the capital have been taking to the streets to protest.

First came the Occupy movement. Then came a series of iconic protests:

• The young single mums who fought evictions from the Focus E15 foyer in Newham where they lived.
• The battle between a US private equity investor and the tenantsof the New Era Estate who, led by comedian Russell Brand, fought plans to hike rents.
• And the two-month occupation of the Aylesbury Estate in south London, where tenants faced eviction.

A rash of occupations, protests and marches have followed – many of which have won unlikely victories. These, in turn, have inspired new recruits struggling to pay soaring rents and galvanised not by the sight of just balaclava-clad activists sneer-ing at police, but instead mums with buggies opening up fl ats on the boarded-up Carpenters Estate in east London.

The inexorable rise of housing activism in London has seen previously disparate interest groups coor-dinate and share resources. Social housing tenants facing the loss of their homes through regeneration projects have come together with pri-vate renters protesting sky-high rents; revolutionary communists joined forces with architects and planners; celebrities have joined with unions; and ordinary commuters without political allegiance have picked up banners to march alongside anar-chists. Their common cause? The fight against the commodification of housing and the break-up of communities in London.

Battle lines are being drawn – and social landlords are being forced to choose a side. Local authorities and housing associations that have traditionally considered themselves as part of the solution to housing need are finding themselves accused of being part of the problem characterised by two words: ‘social cleansing’.

In an exclusive online investigation launched on www.insidehousing.co.uk/housingprotests, Inside Housing has taken an in-depth look at the movement, to report on what this change means for social land-lords. Our digital project reveals who are behind the new wave of housing activists, what they want, how they are organised, the tactics they are deploying and what technologies they are using. Most crucially, we have examined how landlords are being caught in the crossfire, and what role they can play in the rise of housing protests.