The Poverty Trap

Shelter confirms this. Research by the housing charity with pollsters YouGov found that one in three low earners have borrowed money to pay their rent, either from family and friends or through credit cards and payday loans. A full 70% of low earners are either struggling or falling behind with rent payments, barely managing to keep a roof over their heads.

800,000 low-earning renters aren’t able to save even £10 a month t, so saving for a deposit would take decades.  if you can barely afford to save £10 a month, summoning up a rental deposit, first month’s rent and removal fees are far beyond your resources unless you deliberately fall behind on your rent.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation points out, after paying their housing costs, an extra 3.4 million people are in poverty. That’s a huge amount of human suffering.