The Independent: "Over 50,000 families shipped out of London boroughs in the past three years due to welfare cuts and soaring rents"

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"More than 50,000 families have been silently shipped out of London boroughs in the past three years, an investigation by The Independent can reveal.

"Leaked documents obtained by this newspaper expose the true scale of the 'social cleansing' taking place across the capital as a result of welfare cuts and soaring rents. The figures show an unprecedented number of families who cannot afford to find homes in their local area being uprooted from their neighbourhoods and dumped further and further away from the capital, cut off from their relatives and support networks.

"The spike coincides with the Coalition's introduction of the benefit cap and 'bedroom tax', both of which have made it significantly harder for poor people to afford housing in London. In 2010, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, vowed that the controversial welfare reforms would not lead to 'Kosovo-style social cleansing', pledging: 'You are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living'."