Only one paycheque away

Only one paycheque away

11:49 AM, 19th September 2019, About 5 years ago 6

Text Size

Below is a Press release by Shelter and displays why they should be working with landlords rather than against to build up the trust tenants may need in the future.

Shelter:

With little or no savings to fall back on, 45% of private renters in England could not afford to pay their rent for more than a month if they lost their job, new research from Shelter shows.

Surviving from one paycheque to the next the Shelter and YouGov study found that almost three million private renters could be just one paycheque away from losing their home.

The situation is particularly bleak for working families with children. The charity found a staggering 60%, or 760,000 renting families could be just one paycheque away from losing their home. What is worse, a job loss would render more than half a million of these families (550,000) immediately unable to pay their rent.

This concerning snapshot of life for struggling renters’ chimes with the government’s own figures, which reveal 63% of private renting households have no savings at all. Sadly, this is not surprising given they spend on average 41% of their monthly income on rent costs – making it incredibly difficult for private renters to put anything aside.

Shelter is using its latest findings to argue for more social homes as the only stable and genuinely affordable alternative to private renting for millions of people. With the country in a state of political and economic uncertainty, the charity is urging all parties not to side-line the housing crisis, and to ensure social housebuilding is at the centre of any domestic agenda.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “By allowing the number of genuinely affordable social homes to plummet, politicians have super-charged our housing emergency.

“Millions of working people are now caught in an endless cycle of paying grossly expensive private rents they can barely afford – with all the insecurity that brings. Many are terrified that even a short-term dip in income could result in them losing their home for good.

“Warm words and piecemeal policies will not solve this deepening crisis. The only way politicians can fix what has gone so wrong is with a clear commitment from every party to deliver three million more social homes over the next 20 years.”

Case study: Zoe, 44, is a single parent who lives with her 16-year-old son. She currently works two part-time jobs as a carer (30 hours a week). Every month is a financial struggle.

Zoe says: “I work two jobs, but I’m still in a precarious position. If for some reason I lost my job, I worry how quickly we’d end up homeless. I can’t afford to save even £10 a month – everything goes. It’s a stressful situation, I’m just lucky I’ve got my friends around me and we try to help each other out.

“Sometimes I feel looked down on because I don’t have much money or can’t save a month’s worth of rent. But it’s not through lack of trying. I’m a single parent who is trying to be both mum and dad for my son; trying to be both at home for him and the bread winner.

“Life is hard, but I know it’s the same for thousands of other people like me. When you scratch the surface so many people are living month to month – ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.”


Share This Article


Comments

Ian Narbeth

13:50 PM, 19th September 2019, About 5 years ago

If you put up landlord's costs so that they have to increase their rents you will hurt poorer tenants. If you drive the decent landlords out by taxing them excessively, by tripping them up with regulations and fines and threats of fines and imprisonment and by labelling all landlords as rogues, they will sell to the real rogues and you will hurt poorer tenants.
If you prevent landlords from evicting anti-social tenants by abolishing s21 you will hurt poorer and vulnerable tenants and leave them to suffer at the hands of the thug and the bully.
None of this is rocket science.
Shelter, start working with the PRS not against it!

Binks

16:43 PM, 19th September 2019, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 19/09/2019 - 13:50
Well said Ian!

Old Mrs Landlord

17:33 PM, 19th September 2019, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 19/09/2019 - 13:50
I was composing my reply in my head as I read this press release but when I got to the first reply I found you were a step ahead of me and had covered every one of my points, probably better than I could have put it myself.

Lyndon Whitehouse

3:38 AM, 20th September 2019, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Ian Narbeth at 19/09/2019 - 13:50
All there in a nutshell- as you say Ian- not rocket science

DALE ROBERTS

8:30 AM, 20th September 2019, About 5 years ago

Despicable inflammatory rhetoric as usual from Polly and I quote "an endless cycle of paying grossly expensive private rents". And yet another article on this forum states that private landlords make an average of GBP2 000 per annum.
Does Polly really believe that people paying mortgages don't have the same concerns?
She flaunts her antipathy towards the PRS with unconcealed
purpose to justify the desultory role Shelter actually provide in housing anyone.
Polly needs to stop pushing the "victim" mentality.

Mike D

21:47 PM, 20th September 2019, About 5 years ago

Must be careful to pick your target customers!.

Leave Comments

In order to post comments you will need to Sign In or Sign Up for a FREE Membership

or

Don't have an account? Sign Up

Landlord Tax Planning Book Now