Is the earth a planet? Is the Pope a Catholic? Do bears defecate in the woods? I never thought I’d have to write a piece arguing for the existence of a housing crisis. I thought the basic facts of rising homelessness, falling home ownership, a house-price-to-earnings-ratio significantly above the historical average and very weak housebuilding relative to population growth made such a thing eyeball-poppingly self-evident. The housing and homelessness charity Shelter argues that to meet the country’s need for housing, we would need to build 250,000 homes per year, and we are falling dramatically short: “England is now delivering fewer homes than in any peacetime year since the First World War, even before accounting for a much larger population and smaller households.
Source: Is there a housing crisis?