A RADICAL period of social housebuilding is needed in Britain, homeless charity Shelter demanded today after its new research found that more than a third of adults are affected by the “housing emergency.”

Shelter’s study surveyed 13,000 people in April about their housing, finding that 34 per cent of adults had been hit by the ongoing housing crisis. 

The people defined as being affected were those who did not have enough bedrooms, or their home is mouldy, damp, cold or unsafe. 

They would have also had to cut spending to afford housing costs, are worried about losing their home or have been discriminated against.

Households on less than £20,000 a year are 70 per cent more likely to be affected than households earning £40,000 to £45,000 a year while almost a quarter of people are living with significant damp, mould and condensation or cannot keep warm in winter, Shelter said.

One in 12 reported regularly cutting back on essential items such as food and heating to pay for their housing costs, while the same number continue to be worried about losing or being asked to leave their current home, many of them private renters.

Shelter has called on the government to build at least 90,000 good-quality social homes a year to tackle the growing problem. 

Chief executive Polly Neate said: “Decades of neglect have left Britain’s housing system on its knees. A safe home is everything, yet millions don’t have one. 

“Lives are being ruined by benefit cuts, blatant discrimination and the total failure to build social homes.”

Shelter said that black people were 70 per cent more likely to be affected than white people, and Asian people were 50 per cent more likely.

People with a disability, the LGBT community and single mothers were also disproportionately affected by a number of housing issues. 

Shelter Scotland director Alison Watson has said that the country’s housing system was “broken and biased,” claiming that “hundreds of thousands of people are being held back by the lack of a proper home that would support them to flourish.” 

The Westminster government has said that these issues were “unacceptable” and has given stronger tools to crack down on rogue landlords, including fines of up to £30,000 and banning orders.

In Scotland, the government has said that it was committed to everyone having “warm, safe and affordable” homes, pointing to its own house-building strategy.