Nearly two thousand homes are empty near the Grenfell Tower, while 100+ families are homeless. Kensington and Chelsea Council, which owns the tower, revealed that dozens of vacant homes may have been empty for 11 to 15 years. 260 properties stand vacant in southern parts of the borough, the opposite end to Grenfell in the poorer north. These vacant homes are associated with the ‘buy-to-leave’ phenomenon, which involves super-rich foreigners buying high-end properties not to live in, but as an investment. The fire has revealed a terrible message about social inequality in today’s cities. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn faced controversy when he called for Kensington homes left vacant by rich overseas investors to be ‘requisitioned’ for survivors, calling the borough ‘a tale of two cities’.