Social homes – the answer to the housing crisis?

What can data and research tell us about ‘generation rent’, and the policies needed to tackle what they face?

In June, a White Paper set out to address the housing crisis – committing the government to “helping Generation Rent to become Generation Buy”, and adding: “in the meantime, renters should have a positive housing experience”. Much has changed since – not least the Secretary of State responsible – but what do we know about this issue, and what answers can data offer?

Even before the pandemic, the National Housing Federation used Understanding Society data to show that 8 million people in England – around one in seven – were living in an unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable home. Understanding Society is one of the world’s largest panel surveys, gathering data from over 100,000 UK residents each year. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – part of UK Research and Innovation – its size means we can be sure the Study represents the UK’s population.

Research using our data has found that young adults are finding it increasingly difficult to buy their first property because of high prices, debts, less welfare, and difficulty finding secure, well-paid work. People with wealthier parents are more likely to buy, and owner-occupation is “in retreat”. Not only that, but our biomarker data shows that private renters have significantly higher (i.e. worse) levels of c-reactive protein, an indication of how well our bodies deal with infection and stress.

What can government do? Andy Green, Professor of Comparative Social Science at UCL, used our data to show that only a quarter of 18-34-year-olds were home owners in 2013, compared with 46 percent in 1991 – and put forward concrete proposals, including capital gains tax on all home sales, reform of council tax, and regulation for the rental market.

Shelter has called for “£12 billion of investment p.a. to build 90,000 social homes a year” and reform to help councils buy the land needed.

Work using our data backs this up. One group of researchers showed that the links between unaffordable housing and poor health may be stronger than we thought, and called for “more investment in social housing, and less prohibitive land-use policies” to build up supply.

Other research shows that giving council house tenants the right to buy – once thought to make people more conservative – was actually part of a long-term shift in people’s views which brought them closer to (New) Labour. Which begs the question: will one of the UK’s main political parties commit to new social housing in light of this…?