Housing crisis ‘at boiling point’

The government is set to spend almost £60 billion (£58.2 billion) subsidising private landlords over the next four years, five times more than the amount it will spend (£11.5 billion) on its entire affordable housing programme.

New research from the New Economics Foundation (NEF), Beyond new build, blames the Right to Buy policy introduced in 1980 (which allowed council tenants to purchase their homes), for the current housing crisis. This crisis, says the think tank, has been simmering for years and has now reached boiling point.

In the previous decade, 40% of new homes built were social housing, more than a million in total.

But in the 42 years since the introduction of Right to Buy, just 360,000 social homes have been built, making up just 6% of total new homes.

Social housing now makes up just 17% of England’s housing stock compared to 31% in 1980, while the private sector has more than doubled. It now makes up 19% of housing, compared to 9% in 1988.

NEF senior researcher Alex Diner said: “Since the 1980s, we’ve swapped secure and affordable social housing for a private rented sector which leaves households paying through the nose for their homes, living in fear of evictions and rent hikes.”

He added that far from providing stable foundations on which to build our lives, “our housing system has instead become a source of insecurity, hardship, anxiety and poor health for millions”.