Housing Solicitors

The volume of families who are living in temporary accommodation or considered homeless has continued to rise for five consecutive years with evictions by landlords reaching a ten-year high. In a seemingly contradictory statistic, however, the number of working-age adults in full-time employment is at an all-time high. So why is it that employment is at an all-time high, yet the housing crises is reaching tipping point?

Dr. Peter Kenway, director of the New Policy Institute, noted that “an adult in poverty today is much more likely to be young, working and a tenant living in the private rented sector than 15 years ago”. Projections for the next five years are ominous, with property agent Savills predicting a sharp rise in rent prices by 19%. For those looking to buy there is some slightly better news with the prediction for house price increases being only 13%. This statistic feels irrelevant however for those struggling with rent arrears, for whom home ownership feels like a distant dream. The pressure of eviction is ever looming for many of this demographic who range from single parents to those on zero hours contracts and even young professionals.

According to the Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report (2016) rent accounts for at least 33% of income for 70% of private renters living in poverty. With Christmas just around the corner, families are struggling to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads.

The Joseph Roundtree Foundation (JRT) has called for the following measures to try and improve the situation:

• Reverse cuts to the Work Allowance which, when enforced, would mean that a lone parent with two children working on the National Living Wage (NLW) will be £2,600 worse off. Meanwhile, a family of four with both in work on the NLW will be almost £1,000 off.


• End the freeze on working-age benefits so that they can rise in line with inflation. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts that inflation will rise to above 2% next year. This will put pressure on the budgets of low income families if they do not see similar increases in wages and the value of social security.


• Pick up on the momentum to cut costs for renters and build more homes by investing £1.1 billion extra a year in affordable housing through a Living Rents scheme. This would deliver 80,000 genuinely affordable homes each year, link social rents to local wages, making them genuinely affordable to people earning the NLW, and cut the housing Benefit bill in the long term.