Before Covid, Andrei* counted himself as one of the lucky ones. He had moved to the UK from Romania to build himself a better life. Five years later, he had a job and a place to call home with a live-in landlord who had become his friend. But the pandemic turned his life upside down. The warehouse where he worked cut back on staff to meet social distancing guidelines, so his short-term contract wasn’t renewed, and he found it impossible to secure another warehouse job as many companies were making cuts.
He eventually found work with a jewellery business, but he was let go when the company began to struggle financially. With no job, he couldn’t pay his rent and, because he had never signed a formal tenancy agreement, he had no legal rights when his landlord locked him out.
