Professionals forced to live in vans, cars and tents in hidden housing crisis

24 comments

1. It’s not hidden though is it? Everyone knows about it and talks about it constantly.

2. TIL the housing crisis is hidden and not talked about everyday.

3. There’s quite a few around edinburgh too, there’s quite a big group living on waste ground not far from me, they’ve been there for years. I don’t know if they are professionals though, they look like they are incredibly poor and have nowhere else to go.

4. Wonder how long it will be before a law is apssed to an it, can’t have people escaping rent payments for a room in a HMO.

5. Please do not highlight these people in vans as the right wing will turn them into targets for hate. Most are decent people doing their best in difficult circumstances.

6. I’m one of them. Not living on the Bristol Downs where the cover photo is taken although I have stayed there for a couple of weeks.

   Most of us aren’t forced. It’s 100% a lifestyle choice for me and a lot of my friends who are doing similar things. I chose to live in the van and travel whilst working remotely, opting out of ‘the system’ as much as possible.

7. Don’t worry, the government has made it harder to love on vans etc that should solve things

8. There’s nothing “hidden” about it at all its there in plain sight – just look at what rents cost.

   People are in for one hell of a shock in the next 10-20 yrs and I personally believe that large scale trailer parks as seen in the US and also small single room dwellings like we see in places like Hong Kong and Asia will become the norm.

9. But let’s continue letting in 700k net per year, maybe one of them can solve the housing crisis

10. Bodie and Doyle aren’t getting paid enough these days

11. Yeah but I bet they all have Netflix and fancy Pabst iPhones and get Starbucks instead of just making their own coffee

    No one to blame but themselves

12. I looked into van life before I realised I couldn’t afford to do it. Buying a halfway decent van conversion is very expensive, and saving up to buy such a van when you’ve got rent, etc. to pay is no easy task. Doing the conversion yourself requires skills most of us don’t have, and still isn’t cheap.

    I did have a period where I was effectively homeless (sleeping on friends’ sofas for a couple of months) – there was literally nowhere to rent in my budget/commuting distance to work, and I was earning a decent salary in a major city, so I wasn’t poor/in the middle of nowhere. I ended up staying in a hostel until I could find somewhere, and that’s when I was seriously considering getting a van/caravan.

    The situation is utterly mad, especially where I live (Bristol).

13. As opposed to the poors thst have been doing it for decades?

14. The whole country is on its knees. Residents of this country are living like this & we are taking on more & more from the boats. This simply isn’t a sustainable road that we are on. We cannot cope with the population as it is we must help who have resided here before we help others.
    Until then this will be all too common in every town & village.

15. Are we just turning into Victorian Britain but with iphones?

16. Oh no will anyone think about the poor professionals!!

17. Bristol is vile for renters. Not that the rest of the country is much better but the whole situation there is absolutely depressing. Some of the worst landlords I’ve ever experienced.

18. I moved out year ago live full time fed up of getting robbed by everyone/takes organisation, but I have more freedom had to adapt !

19. Some of the worst wealth inequality in the western world, stagnating wages for over a decade, no new homes built, an under invested social security system minus pensions, a heavily weighted service industry and a country owned by foreign private investment…this is the end result of decades of right win economics and under investment in public services cheered on by a clueless electorate lead by foreign owned media. The UK is a dead end for anyone except the well off, actual shit hole run by cunts voted in for by willing morons

20. In Canada we blame Trudeau for this! And if we’re hungry, Galen Weston .

21. Shocking that Bodie and Doyle have fallen on such hard times. Civil service pensions clearly aren’t what they used to be.

22. >One, online maths tutor Callum, 39, quit his £900-a-month rented room in a shared house after a series of health problems. He persuaded his dad to give him his inheritance early and bought a van for £11,000, spending a further £10,000 converting it into accommodation. It includes a wood burner but he spends just £15 a week on heating during the coldest winter months.

    Right you fuckwit, you teach **online** that means you don’t have to live in Bristol. You’d have been better off using that money to put down a deposit on a flat/house in Newport or Swindon or Weston or Gloucester and if you actually needed to go to Bristol you can just hop on the train. But I guess those places don’t sell that ‘must have’ Outer Mongolian Sour Dough Bread that you can get in Clifton.

23. Sounds like America. Where I live RVs are considered homes. If I own an RV and park it in front of my home I can get a ticket. But if I live in an RV I can park it anywhere in the city and because I live in it it cannot be towed. I am thinking about selling my house and moving into an RV so I can park it on the streets where the $20 million houses without having to live in a $20 million house.

24. Tbh I’ve really considered living in a van. Cheaper than paying crippling rent, unfortunately I don’t have the option to live with family.