As the government seeks to develop a new child poverty strategy, it will need to grapple with housing – the single largest cost faced by families. This IPPR report makes a number of recommendations to reform the housing support system.
As home ownership and social renting have declined, the private rented sector (PRS) has ballooned, with over one in five children (22 per cent) living in the PRS compared to one in 12 (8 per cent) just 20 years ago.
This has given rise to growing instability, as whether families can stay put becomes increasingly out of the family’s control and is instead decided by their landlord.
Overcrowding rates have grown and, despite recent improvements, one in five homes in the private rented sector fail to meet basic standards of decency.
Meanwhile, welfare reform has left the housing support system significantly weaker than 15 years ago, through the introduction of the household benefit cap and significant changes to how much families can claim towards their housing costs.