Vulnerable households going into social housing

Published

Last updated 4 March 2021 - see all updates

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1. Main facts and figures

  • in 2017 to 2018, 27.9% of new social housing lettings were given to vulnerable households with a priority need (counting those where ethnicity was known)
  • for all ethnic groups except the Bangladeshi group, homelessness was the most common reason why vulnerable households were given priority for social housing
  • for Bangladeshi households, the most common reason for being given priority for social housing was living in unsanitary, unsatisfactory or overcrowded conditions

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

The data measures the number and percentage of new lettings in social housing given to vulnerable households. A household is deemed vulnerable if the people living there:

  • are homeless
  • need to move for medical reasons or for their wellbeing, including reasons relating to a disability
  • need to move to a particular location in the district of the housing authority, where failure to meet that need would cause hardship
  • are in unsanitary or overcrowded housing, or otherwise living in unsatisfactory housing conditions

The information relates to households of either one person or a group of people sharing cooking facilities and a living room or dining area. It must be their main or only home.

Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

Not included in the data

Data is not shown if there are only 1 or 2 people in a particular ethnic group. This is to protect people’s confidentiality.

The ethnic groups used in the data

Data is shown for the 18 ethnic groups used in the 2011 Census.

Each household’s ethnic group is the ethnicity of the main tenant. For a joint tenancy, the main tenant is the person who is either employed, or unemployed and looking for work. If both tenants have the same employment status, the main tenant is the oldest person.

The ethnicity of the main tenant was not known for 5% of all new social housing lettings.

Methodology

Read the detailed methodology document for the data used on this page.

The data has been weighted so it is representative of the population of England. Read more about how weighting is used to make data more representative of the whole group being studied.

3. By ethnicity and type of priority need

Location:
England
Time period:
2017/18
Source:
Social housing lettings in England: April 2017 to March 2018
Percentage and number of new lettings within each ethnic group by type of priority need
Hardship Homelessness Insanitary/Unsatisfactory Housing Medical Welfare Multiple
Ethnicity Hardship % Hardship Number Homelessness % Homelessness Number Insanitary/Unsatisfactory Housing % Insanitary/Unsatisfactory Housing Number Medical Welfare % Medical Welfare Number Multiple % Multiple Number
All 14.1 11,673 37.1 30,741 21.5 17,808 25.0 20,724 2.4 1,981
Asian 11.7 631 42.0 2,261 30.0 1,613 13.1 704 3.2 175
Bangladeshi 6.8 76 33.1 372 48.4 544 9.2 104 2.6 29
Chinese 17.4 20 41.7 48 26.1 30 9.6 11 5.2 6
Indian 15.5 80 41.9 216 21.5 111 18.8 97 2.3 12
Pakistani 12.9 172 47.0 628 23.4 312 14.4 193 2.3 31
Asian other 13.9 205 47.1 694 21.8 321 14.0 206 3.3 48
Black 12.5 868 40.5 2,808 28.7 1,987 12.5 866 5.9 407
Black African 13.0 417 45.8 1,467 26.8 858 10.0 322 4.4 140
Black Caribbean 14.8 244 38.9 643 23.9 396 18.1 300 4.3 71
Black other 10.6 89 38.4 322 32.8 275 12.5 105 5.6 47
Mixed 15.2 439 42.6 1,234 24.1 697 14.6 424 3.5 102
Mixed White/Asian 16.1 49 47.7 145 21.4 65 11.5 35 3.3 10
Mixed White/Black African 13.9 61 39.4 173 25.3 111 16.4 72 5.0 22
Mixed White/Black Caribbean 14.5 166 44.7 513 22.8 262 14.5 166 3.5 40
Mixed other 16.3 110 43.7 294 24.1 162 14.4 97 1.5 10
White 14.4 9,591 35.9 23,921 19.9 13,262 27.8 18,542 1.9 1,274
White British 14.3 8,277 36.2 20,882 19.4 11,212 28.4 16,383 1.6 952
White Irish 14.5 60 39.7 164 15.7 65 25.9 107 4.1 17
White Gypsy/Traveller .. .. 48.0 47 19.4 19 16.3 16 .. ..
White other 11.9 346 41.5 1,202 28.9 836 14.2 410 3.5 102
Other 12.9 145 46.1 518 22.1 248 16.7 187 2.1 24
Arab .. .. 48.8 202 23.9 99 15.0 62 .. ..
Any other 14.0 73 44.8 233 19.4 101 18.7 97 3.1 16

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and type of priority need’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and type of priority need’ (CSV)

Summary of Vulnerable households going into social housing By ethnicity and type of priority need Summary

This data shows that:

  • overall, 37.1% of vulnerable households were given priority due to homelessness, 25.0% for medical reasons, 21.5% due to living in unsanitary or unsatisfactory conditions, 14.1% for hardship, and 2.4% for more than one of these reasons

  • for all ethnic groups except the Bangladeshi group, homelessness was the most common reason for giving a vulnerable household priority for social housing

  • 48.8% of vulnerable Arab households were given priority because of homelessness, the highest percentage of any ethnic group

  • for vulnerable Bangladeshi households, the most common reason they were given priority was the need to move out of unsanitary, unsatisfactory or overcrowded conditions, which accounted for 48.4% of lettings

4. Data sources

Source

Type of data

Administrative data

Type of statistic

National Statistics

Publisher

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The aim of Continuous Recording of Lettings and Sales in Social Housing in England (CORE) is to provide information about new social housing lettings, sales, tenants and buyers across England.

This information is used by government bodies and organisations to inform social housing funding, regulatory and housing policy decisions.

5. Download the data

Vulnerable households living in social housing - Spreadsheet (csv) 10 KB

This files contains the following: Measure, Time, Time_type, Ethnicity, Ethnicity_type, Reasonable Preference, Value, Numerator

Publication release date: 17 April 2019

Updated: 4 March 2021

full page history
  1. Moved all contextual information to ‘Things you need to know’ and new subsections. Increased visibility by adding it to the table of contents. Removed any duplication and added links to content about understanding our data. Charts, tables and the data file have not been updated.
  2. Added the date range that the data covers (2017/18) to the first bullet point in 'Main facts and figures’.
  3. Some headings have been changed. No data or commentary has been updated.
  4. Updated with the latest available data.

From: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Previous editions:
  1. Edition published on 15 August 2018
  2. Edition published on 2 March 2018
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