Millions of renters face health crisis due to poor housing conditions – Shelter claims

Millions of renters face health crisis due to poor housing conditions – Shelter claims

0:04 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago 14

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Millions of renters in England are suffering from poor mental and physical health, according to new research by Shelter.

The charity claims 40% of renters in England have experienced poor health as a result of poor property conditions in the last year.

Nearly two-thirds of tenants said their mental health had worsened due to housing worries since 2022.

Broken rental system

Campaigners are urging the government to speed up the second reading of the Renters’ Reform Bill and to scrap Section 21 evictions.

According to research by Shelter and YouGov, more than 700,000 renters in London, are suffering mental or physical problems due to the worry of being evicted.

People with disabilities are affected disproportionately by deteriorating health, with half of all disabled renters saying they had become more ill due to worrying about their living conditions, compared with 29% in the rest of the renting population.

Osama Bhutta, the director of campaigns at Shelter, said: “It is disgraceful that England’s 11 million private tenants are at the mercy of a broken rental system while politicians sit on their hands and dither over whether to make renting fairer and safer.”

Renters continue to suffer

The Shelter survey, carried out between July and August this year, exposed the financial situation facing many of England’s 11 million renters.

Almost half said they would not be able to afford where they live if their landlord increased the rent by 10%. This applied to almost two-thirds of the 1.8 million renters in London and about 60% in the south-west, south-east and north-west of England.

Mr Bhutta says the renters (reform) bill would reduce homelessness and help hold landlords to account.

He added: “The government cannot allow this bill to be held hostage by a group of landlord backbenchers while so many renters continue to suffer. It’s pivotal it gets the renters (reform) bill over the line and keeps its promise to protect the millions of people who call private renting home.”


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Sheridan Vickers

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9:58 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

Pity Shelter got us all in this mess and still trying to blame landlords. I don't believe anything they say or represent. They're a sham. Taking money and never housing anyone

Fed Up Landlord

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10:02 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

What a bunch of muppets Shelter are. They need to deal with council housing first before keep banging the drum about the PRS.

"The regulator’s investigation revealed that around 23,000 social homes owned by the city do not meet the Decent Homes Standard. The regulator also found a range of serious health and safety issues across thousands of homes, including almost 17,000 overdue asbestos surveys, around 15,500 late electrical safety inspections and more than 1,000 fire risk assessments that were overdue, mainly for low-rise housing blocks. These failures meant thousands of council tenants were at potential risk of serious harm"

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rsh-finds-serious-problems-at-birmingham-city-council

Reluctant Landlord

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10:06 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

at what point is the 'broken rental system' the complete fault of private landlords exactly?????

JeggNegg

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10:41 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

shelter play a good role to keep the PRS on its toes! but i do wish they provided evidence and a full explanation to back up ALL the claims they make
and until the evidence is provide in future i will have to agree with Sheridan Vickers, i cannot believe anything they say.
wouldn't be positive if the made a point which needs to be rectified, supplied the supportive evidence, AND OFFERED TO WORK WITH THE PRS?, as they stop very short of any positive long term support for all the tenants they support to try and improve the houses which are owned by beaten-up landlords.
its so easy to find fault with many things in life and the world around us, and walking away. the hard bit is providing long term cost effective solutions.

come on SHELTER, please do better if your claims are ALL true, and if you really want to make a positive difference work with the PRS and find solutions so these tenants can have a better rental experience.

JeggNegg

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10:56 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

Reply to the comment left by Fed Up Landlord at 05/10/2023 - 10:02
my belief is many council houses are in need of improvement and probably fail the H&S standards the PRS have to reach. is it true that social housing have lower requirements/standards than the PRS landlord?

re Birmingham C, did i read they are in effect bankrupt to the amount of over £700million?

Juan Degales

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11:13 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

Shelter are becoming ridiculous with their increasing idiotic “research”. Seems like they have to come up with more and more alarmist rhetoric to get themselves noticed. They certainly are not helping tenants, sorry here in Wales we now have to call them “contract holders”

Old Mrs Landlord

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11:22 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

If Shelter seriously think, as they claim here, that the Renters (Reform) Bill will reduce homelessness then they are in for a nasty shock. They only have to read forums such as this to gauge the proportion of landlords who intend to exit the sectior once the Bill becomes law, but perhaps Mr Bhutta is not able to comprehend the relationship between supply and demand.

LaLo

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11:23 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

I’ve heard this so many times before - I’m sure the record has got stuck! Someone in the House of Commons was talking about the same thing the other day. Will Landlord Bashing ever cease??

LaLo

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11:54 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

After reading some of the Labour Party manifesto - if they gain power in their first year they plan to bring in their ‘warm homes plan’ involving millions of properties to be insulated! Not much details given though?

Reluctant Landlord

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11:54 AM, 5th October 2023, About A year ago

Reply to the comment left by Juan Degales at 05/10/2023 - 11:13
offically perhaps...but you can call them anything you like! 😉

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