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Minority ethnic groups spend larger chunk of income on rent, audit reveals
Most ethnic minority groups are more likely to spend a larger chunk of their income on rent than white British households, a government audit has revealed.
The government’s Race Disparity Audit, published yesterday, sets out various findings on how different ethnic groups are treated by the UK’s public services.
In a section on housing, it noted that some ethnic groups were more likely to be in non-decent homes, spend a larger chunk of their incomes on rent and that there has been an increase in the number of ethnic minority households that have been made statutorily homeless over the past 20 years.
The latest data available shows that in 2015/16, 83.6% of new social housing lettings went to white households, compared to the overall proportion of white households in the UK, which is 84.6%. While 3.7% of the country’s population is black, 7.2% of new social lettings went to black households.
The audit found rents were less affordable for most ethnic minority groups than for white British households, with Irish, Indian, and households from any mixed background being the exceptions.
Regardless of whether they rented from a social or private landlord, ethnic minority households spent a higher proportion of their incomes on rent. Even after factoring in income and higher housing costs in some regions, this difference in affordability for most ethnic minority groups was found in every socio-economic group and most income bands in London, the South East and the West Midlands.
While the overall numbers of households accepted as statutorily homeless in England has decreased substantially since 2006 – from 73,000 to 59,000 – the percentage of these that are ethnic minority households has risen.
On homeownership, the audit showed that two in three white householders own a home, compared with two in five people from other ethnic groups.
