The returned: Experiences of un-homing on a ‘regenerating’ London housing estate

Amid a globalised crisis in secure housing provision, this article zooms in on the specific experiences of older working-class people coping with public housing demolition and forced neighbourhood transition in London. London’s new-build mixed tenure housing developments provide varying proportions of social rental housing, some of it made available to tenants of the council estate it replaced. This article examines the experiences of older people who have taken up the ‘opportunity’ of ‘return’ and explores the multi-faceted work they are forced to undertake as they move into unfamiliar and capricious social, physical and political landscapes superimposed on the collapsed infrastructure of their old estate. The article brings themes of ‘un-homing’, ageing in place and everyday ‘repair’ work into encounter and calls for greater qualitative understanding of the ‘return’ experience as a dimension of forced relocation by housing restructuring and tenurial mixing projects.