With more than one million households on England's social housing waiting list, according to Shelter England's social housing deficit campaign, filmmaker Ed Stafford moves into some of the UK's most troubled housing estates for 60 days and nights, to look beyond the tabloid headlines and experience first-hand the daily hardships that locals face. In this opening episode, Ed is in Northumberland Park, north London, where he meets a mum with three sets of twins under 11 who live in a one-bed council flat which has recurring damp. He also meets a 45-year-old resident who started smoking crack at 17 and now lives alone in a housing association flat

Ed Stafford moves into a tower block not far from Birmingham's city centre, which has seen a worrying increase in youth violence in the wake of extensive cuts to youth services. Unemployment levels in the city are some of the highest in the country, and with the cost-of-living crisis biting hard, Ed also meets a former working mum-of-three who is currently claiming benefits and having to resort to food banks to feed her family

Ed Stafford heads to the Easterhouse estate, six miles east of Glasgow city centre, and discovers that the cost-of-living crisis has hit the locals hard. The city has seen high levels of drug abuse over the years and Ed meets the locals who are living with the effects of it daily. A young man who got hooked on cocaine aged just 14 nearly died of an overdose. Thanks to rehab and the support of his family, he's swapped cocaine for boxing and is enroute to becoming a professional athlete