Housing – basic right and the bane of all our lives. University is in part about learning to navigate the housing market. Once that blissful first year guarantee of halls accommodation comes to an end, we’re flung headlong into the brutal world of the London rental market. Terrifying.

This year Lucinda and I are working hard on a major housing project. We’re trying to cover all the bases, from developing a proposal for Imperial to act as a guarantor to those who can’t provide one, to postgraduate housing mixers, all the way up to lobbying Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith in the London Mayoral Election in 2016.

We’ve been working with a group called CitizensUK, a community organisation alliance working for social justice on their major housing campaign in the run up to the Mayorals. They’re arranging the biggest event of the campaign: over 6000 people in the Olympic Park’s Copper Box, two mayoral candidates and three major asks from the people of London.

Imperial College Union wants to be a part of this. We’re working on building up our asks and identifying the key issues affecting students at Imperial in the private housing market; to do this we’re aiming to speak to 3000 students about their housing nightmares. You may have seen me at Freshers’ Fair asking people to write their housing nightmares on massive flipcharts. It’s a start but there’s still a long way to go.

We’ll be on campus over the next couple of weeks talking to students face to face about their housing problems, but we’ve also launched a short survey to help us get an initial idea of the issues you guys are facing. It'll take you 30 seconds tops! Access the survey here.

If you want to tell us about your housing nightmares, get in touch with either Lucinda or myself. Also, if you want to accompany me to a meeting with CitizensUK and West London community groups to negotionate the main asks, drop me an email.