# The private renters trapped in Britain’s new slums (The Guardian, 13 Apr 2019) * **The private renters trapped in Britain’s new slums** * By Tom Wall. Published in the Guardian on 13 April 2019 * * **Summary**: * The stark human cost of Britain’s decade-long austerity drive, welfare reforms and warped housing priorities can be glimpsed in 11 decaying flats carved from what was once a grand Victorian terrace home in Weston-super-Mare. (...) * These are the new slums of Britain – a tenure of unsafe and unaffordable housing with few routes out. The people trapped here would have once have had the chance of moving into [relatively spacious, well-equipped council homes](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/20/council-houses-were-once-a-glory-of-the-public-realm-lets-return-to-those-days) at genuinely affordable rents. But, due to the failure of successive governments [to build enough social housing](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground), that is an option open only for a vanishingly small minority of people in the most extreme circumstances. * Exclusive analysis of official figures by the academic duo at the forefront of research into the private rental sector, Julie Rugg and David Rhodes, shows that **90% of the 1.4 million households renting on low incomes in England are being put at risk by harmful living conditions and/or pushed further into poverty and possible eviction by rents they cannot afford.** * **Nearly 30% are living in non-decent homes, 10% are** [**living in overcrowded properties**](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/31/overcrowding-social-housing-england) **and 85% are in “after housing cost poverty”**, which means their rent pushes them below the poverty line. * **Keywords**: slums, England, United Kingdom, UK, housing crisis, affordability, rental market, social housing, Julie Rugg, David Rhodes