The Voice of Young People study aimed to gain insights into the challenges young people aged 12-29 face. The research involved 388 respondents from across the UK who participated in an online, anonymous questionnaire in late February 2023.
The findings were then reviewed and discussed by Sport 4 Life’s Youth Panel in May 2023, who provided additional context and qualitative information.
Video transcript
Moving out and trying to actually become independent in this day and age as a young person, it’s getting near enough impossible. You can find some places, but they just tend to be just a box and you’re just there almost suffocated. The conditions ain’t the best.
It’s ridiculous the hoops that people have to jump through just to prove that they can afford to rent.
You can find some places, but they just tend to be just a box and you’re just there almost suffocated. The conditions ain’t the best.
The same people who can then afford that rent, that could theoretically afford that same amount in a mortgage a month, are being then denied because even though you can clearly pay that amount of rent, it just seems to be, there’s a whole different set of rules.
So I recently had a young couple that I knew very well. They were living with a private landlord, the private landlord wanted them out. So they were a new couple, they were very young. One of them was only 18 years old and they had a baby on the way, and they didn’t have anywhere to go with space or good living conditions for them, as they were being immediately kicked out, pretty much.
So thankfully, with my situation, I had the opportunity to give them a bedroom and give them space. They’re still struggling to this day to find their own place and stuff like that, their baby’s been here now and such. And like I said, they’re a very young couple. They don’t have a lot of outreach, they don’t have a lot of help. They’re struggling to find their own place. They don’t want to live with me forever as a new couple.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of renters stuck in situations with shoddy landlords with less than acceptable, like the bar’s low, but way less than acceptable conditions.
It’s only gotten worse after COVID. Prices have gone up. There’s lots of these new fancy houses that you see getting built, but the prices of them and such is just not affordable for young people.
People are stuck paying all this rent and having to prove as well, not only can they pay the rent that they’re entering the contract for, they have to prove that they can pay for 20 odd years worth of rent just to even get a look-in. Exaggeration, but it’s really, people are having to prove so much to even get a look-in when it comes to certain places, let alone to actually then have to continue to pay that.
It’s ridiculous the hoops that people have to jump through.
A new housing deal for young people would be really good for them. They won’t have to rely on renting, which, in itself, is unreliable itself. They’ll be able to work better, work harder, which means that they won’t have to worry about the affordability of stuff. Their travel, their commute to work will be better, their social lives will be better. They’ll be able to settle down, start a family, with the security of having a home.
Let’s say if they did improve the housing crisis and stuff for young people, I feel like it’d make the young person feel a part of that society. And I feel like they’d have more time to focus on their own careers, themselves, and not have to worry about these obscene prices, the potential of getting kicked out, being homeless, and then they’d have more time to develop themselves.