NewsRescue
According to a recent analysis by the British countryside charity Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), the number of homeless people in rural England has increased by 40% in five years due to rising property prices and the cost-of-living problem.
According to the report, the number of individuals sleeping rough in the UK has climbed from 17,212 in 2018 to 24,143 in 2023, with those living in the open air, tents, improvised shelters, or buildings not designed for human occupancy.
According to the study, 15 persons out of every 100,000 are homeless in England. According to CPRE, the problem is worse in rural areas than in many of England’s towns and cities, such as London, Leeds, and Norwich.
According to the charity, the crisis stems from the economic downturn that started in 2022, when inflation in the UK hit a multi-decade high of 11.1% due to soaring costs of energy and food. The crunch eventually resulted in record-high house prices, stagnating wages, huge waiting lists for public housing and price rises for second homes and short-term lets, including Airbnb. A lack of affordable housing that it describes as “severe” has exacerbated the country’s cost-of-living crisis, CPRE said. The report adds that 300,000 people are waiting for social housing in rural England, where the average house price stands at around £420,000 ($535,000).
According to a separate survey from housing charity Shelter, the number of displaced people in Britain increased by 14% in December compared to the same month last year. According to the think tank Centre for Cities, it would take the country half a century to fix its housing crisis since the UK (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales) was short of nearly four million dwellings, with the majority of the gap in England.
