Heritage Yellow - serious adult woman and man Heritage Yellow - serious adult woman and man
Survey

Please fill in our survey to give your feedback on our policy pages. Your responses will help us continue to improve how we present policy research and data on our website.

Housing data

Mortgage holders and private renters are deep in the red

In 2019/20, 25% of the mortgage holders we helped with debt advice were in a negative budget - where their income doesn't cover their essential costs.

In Jan 2024, 62% of mortgage holders were in a negative budget.

Meanwhile, nearly 60% of private renters are now in a negative budget, compared to 50% of people in social housing - as rising private rents drive people into the red. 

High and rising private rent and mortgage costs are driving people into the red

This chart shows the average housing costs of the people we help with debt advice by their housing tenure.

Gas and electricity, private rent and mortgage costs have all increased significantly in the last two years.

High housing and energy costs are driving the people we help into a negative budget.

Among the people we help with debt advice, private renters are spending 51% of their income on their housing and energy costs alone.

Meanwhile, social renters in a negative budget are spending 42% of their income on housing and energy costs.

Record levels of homelessness among private renters

After a welcome drop in demand in the early months of the pandemic as the Government banned evictions, we are now helping record numbers of people with a homelessness issue.

In January 2024, we helped a record number of people with a homelessness issue - the fourth time this record has been broken since June 2023.

Use the drop-down filter to look at the breakdown by different groups. 

Rising private rents, the Local Housing Allowance freeze and the rise in Section 21 ('no fault') evictions have led to a steep rise in private renters needing help with homelessness since the pandemic.

You can download our data for ‘The number of people we're helping with homelessness issues each month’ as a CSV file.

Section 21 evictions

In 2023, we helped a record number of people with Section 21/'no fault' evictions.

Some groups are affected more by the rise in Section 21/'no fault' evictions, including single parents, women and racially minoritised groups.

You can read more about the unequal impact of the evictions crisis on racially minoritised groups in this blog.

Use the dropdown menu to explore the trends for different demographic groups.

This series of charts shows the number of people we're helping with Section 21 evictions issues per 100,000 of the population of each region in England and Wales.

This shows that Section 21 evictions are not just a problem affecting London and the South East. In February, we helped a record number of people in the North East, per 100,000 of the population, with a Section 21 issue.

You can use the drop-down menu to select an individual region.