When Colin and Gemma Booth were told a little over a year ago they would have to find somewhere else to live after the owner of the flat they rented in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight died, they didn’t panic.
“We thought it was a push to find a bigger place,” says Gemma, as Quinton, eight, Phoenix, seven, Amity, three, and Oberon, 22 months, vie for attention around her. “We had no idea what was coming.”
Fourteen months later, they have lived in two holiday chalets, a single room and now a small two-bedroom flat with no oven. Most of their stuff is still in storage.
Sitting in their spotless, if crowded, living room, they still look shellshocked at joining the more than 100,000 families in England, including more than 125,000 children, living in temporary accommodation, the highest figure in 20 years.
“I never thought this could happen to us,” says Colin, 46. “I knew we wouldn’t be able to afford our own home, but I just thought we’d be renting privately for ever.”
But after being forced to look for a new home, they found rents had shot up in the four and a half years since they had last looked – from under £500 to almost £1,000 a month.
They told the council about their situation and were put on the social housing waiting list. In May, with 24 hours to go before having to vacate their flat, in May last year they were finally housed in a small holiday chalet for a few days and then moved on to a single room apartment.
Their eldest child was then seven, the youngest six months, and the room – no more than 20 sq metres – had bunk beds, two cots and a single bed. Colin slept on the floor. As a heatwave hit the UK, the temperature in the flat soared. Then their baby got chicken pox, while Colin and two of the other children came down with Covid. “Oh my God,” says Gemma, 33, recoiling at the memory. “It was …” her voice tails off.
After eight weeks, again with a day’s notice, they were moved to a caravan with a leaking roof for three months, before finally being temporarily housed in a small two-bedroom flat in Newport in October, where they have been ever since.
The pair cheerfully deal with the children’s requests and dole out cuddles, but the mental strain is clear.
“I’ve cried because it’s just overwhelming,” says Colin, who works as a re-enablement carer, helping people who are unwell live in their own homes. “Gemma really struggles with anxiety now. At times, you just feel like there’s just no answer. There’s nowhere to go.”
The Booths are at the hard end of a UK housing crisis that shows no sign of abating. While homeowners are being hit with sharp increases in interest rates, the demand for rental properties has rocketed, and rents have increased by almost 10% since April 2020.
On the Isle of Wight the crisis is exacerbated by the number of incoming retirees and the seasonal nature of many jobs, as well as the large number of second homes and holiday lets. More than 2,500 people are on the council’s housing register, and more than £2m was spent on temporary accommodation in 2022. The council no longer owns any housing, as all stock was transferred to housing associations in the 1990s.
The council has promised to tackle the crisis and to crack down on empty properties, but more “creative” measures are needed, says David Pugh, the leader of the council from 2007 to 2013.
In Wales, radical measures are giving councils extra powers to increase the amount of council tax that second-home owners have to pay and to change planning rules to make it harder for homes to become holiday boltholes. Brighton has voted to ban new buildings for non-primary residents, as have St Ives and Whitby.
More widely, the government’s levelling up bill, currently going through parliament, will give councils the freedom to double council tax on second homes in England for any property left empty for more than 72 days a year. But many locals on the Isle of Wight argue that so-called DFLs (Down from London) avoid paying council tax at all, by renting out their property for at least 70 days a year.
“They should pay council tax, or go home,” grumbles one disgruntled resident.
There are also simply not enough homes being built, says Pugh, the outgoing chair of the local Conservative association. He says the government’s decision to scrap housing targets has “given a green light to those councillors who want to take a nimbyism approach to housing”.
Gemma and Colin doubt that new housing would help them much. For them, buying a house is an unattainable dream. The couple have a debt management plan put in place after they used credit cards to survive when Colin lost his job during the pandemic. And even if they had spare money to save up for a deposit, their universal credit and housing benefit would be cut if they saved more than £6,000, which would then soon be swallowed by the cost of a private rental. “It’s a rock and a hard place,” says Colin.
If they move back into private rented accommodation, they fear ending up without a roof over their heads. “If the rent goes up again and you go into arrears, the council have no duty to house you,” says Gemma. The cost and availability of childcare makes work currently unviable for her, she says. “We would end up homeless again, but with no help at all. We just can’t risk it.” So, for now, they are stuck.
Gemma struggles to get all four children down the outdoor stairs to the flat and the couple worry that their eight-year-old, who is autistic and has suspected dyspraxia, might fall. They apply for every ground floor social housing property that becomes available, but often find they are number 40 or 50 in the queue.
They know they are not alone, but that provides scant comfort. “So many more people are going to get caught up in our type of homelessness, through no fault of their own,” says Colin. “It feels like the water is rising, but all the lifeboats are full.”
