Housing Crisis

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How have you been affected by it?

Are you waiting for housing and homeless?
Are you overcrowded?
Or what

Is it a world wide thing

We have a crisis here , rich out of town people have bought up homes and built fancy homes for vacation rentals to tourists. Locals can’t find a rent house anymore.
There are several low income apartments in town but no vacancies until someone dies off.

Yeah I hate that too

I always wonder where they move all the people to who have lived there for years

I'm from Salford and it's been redeveloped so much that I barely recognise the place

It borders onto Manchester and to be honest I think "their" game is to expand Manchester City Center to the detriment of Salford

I'm always surprised to see my old primary school still standing because that is almost on the border

They will keep expanding it until Salford barely even gets a mention anymore

I'm surrounded by overcrowdedness

I sometimes wonder where they fit everyone into these pokey little flats

Bath night must be a nightmare

It's all because there's nowhere for families to live anymore

And I think it would be too expensive to go private for a family of 6, with dogs

The whole world has lost the plot when it comes to housing

It's like a tsunami of an issue and everyone is just drowning in it

And I don't think there is just one cause either

Here there is no zoning so if your family has land they might let you build a shack or pull up a trailer house, if you get along. Really the only option for young people here.No good paying jobs either so some folks are living in crap- shacks while the rich out of state newcomers up the road live in a mansion.
For every vacation rental they build they should have to build one small affordable home to rent to local low income families.They have driven the price of land up where it’s ridiculous.

Yeah my daughter would love to buy a house and a few years ago she would have been able to, but she's got no chance with the way it is

The UK is just greedy and so everywhere is needlessly expensive. The cheapest way to live securely is in council, but it's extremely hard to get into council unless you are currently in an inadequate living situation, and even then it's hard. You basically have to be homeless with no family around to support you, to be in the highest priority band. Even families are stuck in private rented apartments and can't find a council house, which I think is disgusting, considering all the fields and trees they chop down every day to build more huge housing estates on.
I'm in the lowest priority band, which means I have no chance of getting into council. If we were in council then we'd be paying about £300 less than what we're paying now, which we really could do with. I think we should be offered affordable housing, because my partner is a pensioner now with physical health problems and I only work part-time and have mental health problems, so I don't get why we're stuck in the lowest priority group. But there are people I know who are waiting to get into council who are as poor as me, have kids, and even have more mental health/neurological problems than I do. My friend is in private rented and has autism and epilepsy and is on disability for his conditions, but can't find a new place where he can be near his family. He lives alone and wants to continue living alone, but just wants to be nearer his family and to rent somewhere more affordable (council). But even he can't get anywhere. So what chance do I have? None.

I think everywhere that isn't bought should automatically be council, so that there's more availability to go around and shorter waiting lists. Private rented is the worst, especially in this greedy country where the landlords charge so much for rent no matter how cheaply built your apartment is. If the apartment I lived in now was council it'd probably only be about £300 a month, because of its thin floors and outdated windows and mould problem.

Yeah it's grim

I know how she feels. Honestly I had a bit of a breakdown earlier about the housing crisis and the job market and everything else.

It's very difficult when where you want to be in life is different from where you are and you don't know how you are going to get from Point A to Point B.

I still think about that time I was on a bad date that was interrupted by a street journalist asking for our opinions on the housing crisis.

Or the time I was out doing my shopping and a local politician who was running for election gestured around and she said "With my help, we can turn this travesty into a thriving community once more" whilst I quickly rushed out of camera shot.

I know this place is dire but don't involve me in this, I just wanted a Greggs pasty.

I was homeless on the streets 20 times because of it. I cant afford rent or a mortgage anywhere. I am hidden homeless now because I have to live with my parents.

Yes, I've been affected by the housing crisis.

I haven't been able to afford a one bedroom rental suite for almost three years. I used to rent a basement suite for a fairly reasonable rate, but that all ended when my landlord's wife filed for divorce and the house had to get sold.

In the three years that I was renting my basement suite rents had more than doubled. I've had to move six times in the last three years. I've been doing basically glorified couch surfing since I lost my last rental.

Thankfully I'm in a better place now, I'm currently staying with some friends of the family. I moved out of the city and into the interior of BC, so things are much less over crowded and the cost of living is lower.

I would highly recommend moving away from the city if you can. Urban areas are more expensive now than ever before. Most of the population growth is happening in the cities and suburbs due to immigration, causing rents to skyrocket.

To answer your last question, I don't think this is a world wide phenomenon. The only countries that are having this issue that I know of are first world countries like Canada, USA, UK, Australia. No one is packing their bags to grab some cheap land in Mongolia.

Well there's my two cents on the matter.

CFL

There's been a housing crisis in the US for some time now and it's been made worse in my local area due to gentrification. People from higher incomes areas, like New York and New Jersey, moved here during the pandemic when they were suddenly able to work remotely, which drove housing costs up even further than they were already rising. And, it's still a very strong seller's market. Really, the only people buying here right now are people who already own homes and can roll over the equity or people with wealthy parents gifting them the money.

I'm currently paying significantly more to rent a studio apartment than I would have spent on a monthly mortgage payment for the average-sized single family home in the area about three or four years ago. I've tried to work hard and have lived frugally for a long time, so I have managed to save a lot towards making a larger than average down payment, but am still priced out of the market in my area. I'm in my 40's, so at this point I'm debating between moving further away to a new area and just biting the bullet on a horrible commute or continuing to rent until I can purchase in a 55-plus community.

It's frustrating and depressing, but I am also thankful to have a roof over my head at all. So many people don't even have that.

This stems from decades of systemic failures.

1. We let mega-investors snatch up all non-occupied housing (and try to buy out the existing residents of the communities they want).

2. We stigmatize public housing.

3. Everything we do build is luxury this, luxury that, and the middle-class-friendly homes are the ones the big investors are buying in bulk. They're even buying up trailer parks!

4. Racist housing policies (redlining, and to a lesser extent, gated communities and HOAs).

5. Cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, due to failures to address housing needs of both established residents and the incoming tech talent from elsewhere, are little more than personal playgrounds for the tech bros.

The three most affordable US cities: Detroit, St. Louis and Pittsburgh.

Too many people in this world, that's the problem. Yet people are freaking out because people are having less babies, like it's going to cause humans to go extinct.
Um, no, having less babies being born is still just a drop in the ocean in this huge population of humans we have destroying the planet. In fact I think a slight decrease in births is probably what this planet needs.

You must live in a city, once you you get out into the countryside you realize really quick that there is lots of room for everyone and the world is not over populated.

Over density is the real issue in urban areas. There was a mass exodus of people from rural areas to the cities in search for work, in the mid to late 1800's following the industrial revolution. Over the past 200 years it's been a slow but steady migration from the farms into the city.

Another cause for over densification is mass immigration from 2nd and 3rd world countries to 1st world countries.

Take Canada for example, ten million immigrants have came in the past decade, most of which have settled in and around urban centers like Vancouver and Toronto. If you live in one of these areas you would be quick to think that the whole country and by extension the world is packed full of people, but the fact is it simply isn't.

Most of Canada is empty and sparsely populated, in fact I think that Canada could support many more people if it had to. We have the space and the natural resources to do so. Not that I support support such a goal.

I agree that urban life is expensive and stressful, but the reason many of us feel like we are packed in like sardines is not because people are having too many babies, it's because people are moving in from different areas into western cities.

I live in a city, yeah. But apparently it's not just the UK that is having a housing crisis, because every country is claiming to be having the same issue, so that's why I put it down to overpopulation. I don't want to live in the city, but being as poor as I am I have no choice. I grew up in the country but now even that's become a huge place with thousands of houses and only one doctors surgery.

When I was little you had a family doctor that sometimes came round to your house. Nowadays you're lucky if you can see a doctor at all.