Rural homelessness is a growing crisis and this is why it must be tackled
The next time you hear someone reach for the old “greenbelt is under threat” cliché get them to read this article. It tells us:
The housing crisis in England has seen many people forced into increasingly unaffordable housing beyond their means. While this problem is often framed as one affecting urban areas, the lack of genuinely affordable housing also affects rural areas.
This crisis bears a heavy cost as it pushes young people and low-income earners out of the places they call home. Not only does this raise the question about whether rural communities can survive and thrive without a future generation, it also bears a significant human cost, with increasing numbers of people being pushed into rural homelessness.
Housing affordability in rural areas has significantly worsened in the past decade. Since 2011, the amount of social housing built in rural areas has decreased by 83 per cent. Instead, consecutive governments have encouraged the construction of so-called ‘affordable housing’ in its place. This type of housing can be set at up to 80 per cent of market rents, meaning that in many areas, it is only marginally more affordable than private rented housing.
The root of the problem lies with government policy. Since 2012, successive governments have made the idea of affordable rent far more attractive to housing developers than social housing.
Government funding has channelled significant amounts of money into the construction of affordable rent homes, largely at the expense of building social rent homes.
Faced with a shortage of social rent housing that is genuinely affordable and stuck with the option of ‘affordable rent’ or private rent, many low-income households increasingly face a stark choice between trying to afford high rents in their local area or looking for cheaper housing elsewhere.