More gloom for young people’s housing hopes

A new report published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warns of a looming housing crisis for more than a million young people by 2020.

‘Housing options and solutions for young people in 2020′ suggests that an additional 1.5 million 18 to 30-year-olds will be forced into private renting over the next eight years and wreck many young people’s dreams of ever owning a home or make them wait much longer to acheive it. It also claims that an extra 500,000 young people will be obliged to live with their parents well into their 30s, taking the total doing so to 3.7 million by 2020.

Overall, the number of home owners under 30 will nearly halve by 2020, with 1.3 million expected to own their own homes. At the same time, the number of homeless young people under 25 is predicted to rise to 81,000.

“Our badly functioning housing system will see those on the lowest incomes really struggling to compete in the competitive rental market of 2020,” said Kathleen Kelly, Programme Manager for Place at the JRF. “Renting is likely to be the only game in town and young people are facing fierce competition to secure a home in what is an already diminished supply of housing. With 400,000 vulnerable young people, including families, on the bottom rung of a three-tier private renting system we need to avoid turning a housing crisis into a homelessness disaster.”

The increased numbers of young people looking for accommodation in the private rented sector (PRS) will mean that young families, poorer and vulnerable people will find it harder to find tenancies: around 310,000 more young families will be looking for private rented housing in 2020.

The report warns of a ‘three-tier’ system developing in a race to find PRS housing, with those at the top who can afford to pay, a ’squeezed middle’ group who might struggle to pay and a bottom rung of 400,000 who risk being excluded completely.

The report’s authors make various recommendations including:
* provision of more affordable rents and longer, more stable private rented tenancies, with tax breaks for landlords who offer these options
* expansion of local letting agencies who find suitable private rented housing and protect vulnerable young people by acting as brokers between young people and landlords
* addressing the long term undersupply of housing to improve affordability

David Clapham, lead author of the report, said: “It’s vital we take the opportunity to make renting work better. To do this we need strong political leadership that is willing to work with both landlords and tenants to make it more affordable and stable for ‘generation rent’.

“Young people are at a double disadvantage – it takes longer to raise enough for a deposit and their wages are generally lower. But there are simply not enough homes and those we do have cost too much to rent or buy. While more housing would help address this, it may not come quick enough for young people forced into renting in eight years’ time.”

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• marky_pc69

  How about also stopping subsidies to landlords via housing benefit and building more council houses. Just a thought.

• 1stAfterburner

  Hey, Obama got it half right, not much hope but we got a lot of change.

• Dromo

   Council house dwellers vote labour therefore there will never be any more council houses under a Tory Gov. Dogma trumps necessity every time.