Debt collectors should not be the first person indebted residents meet, says council director

He described the move from the Household Support Fund to the Crisis Resilience Fund as “a bit of a moment for us to think about what that next move looks like”.

Klara Skrivankova, director of grants at the non-profit Trust for London, highlighted research that shows how housing affordability is associated with stronger productivity and stronger economic performance.

She said: “If we improved housing affordability by only one percentage point in London, it will bring back into London’s economy [the equivalent of] hundreds of millions of pounds in additional economic output.

“It is about the broader economy and the impact on London, and it really reminds us that investing in affordable housing is not simply addressing that individual need, [which is] really important, but about creating the conditions in which people can thrive.

“Creating economic infrastructure with housing being part of that, creating neighbourhoods… it’s as important as transport, skills or digital connectivity.”

Ann-Marie Soyinka, assistant director of skills and employment (policy) at the Greater London Authority, highlighted how the London Growth Plan had a number of ambitions to help address some of these issues.

She said: “Two [ambitions] that I’ll focus on is increasing productivity by an average of 2% per year over the next decade, and increasing the income of the lowest 20% of earners by 20% over the next 10 years, and that’s really speaking about growth that is inclusive.

“That really brings along those who face additional barriers in London’s labour market, and that’s really important, because the data shows us that after housing costs, the 10% lowest earners in London actually earn about 30% less than the lowest earners in the rest of the UK.

“So after you take housing costs into account, it’s really about how we make London a liveable city for people where they can actually afford to live their lives, and have a level of well-being as well, associated with [affordable housing].”

Ms Soyinka then moved on to the government-commissioned Get London Working Plan, which helped set out delivering these targets.

She added: “A key theme in those strategies is how we integrate systems better. We know that Londoners experience multiple barriers, including skills challenges, housing challenges, health challenges.

“All of these things are experienced at the same time, and often actually, some of them, like housing and health, are more pressing to Londoners than looking for their next job or progressing in their careers, and so it’s really important that we’re able to join up those services.”

An earlier session had looked at how high rents and the cost of living is linked to homelessness, and pointed out that funding for homelessness is “very much concentrated” on crisis response instead of prevention.