By Sammie Jones-
The average Brit would be homeless after two months if they lost their job, according to a survey.
Most Brits would only be able to pay their rent or mortgage for two-and-a-half months following a job loss, the survey commissioned by beam.org reveals
The finding of the survey which interviewed 1,500 Brits in December suggests that many adults are just a couple of pay cheques away from facing homelessness, with three in four worrying that they could end up losing their home if their financial situation changed.
The poll concluded that the average time that someone could pay their rent or mortgage if they lost their job was 2.5 months.Three quarters (76 per cent) said they worry that if their financial situation changed in just one way, they might end up losing their home, or evicted.
Of these, 31 per cent said they worry about this all the time, and 45 per cent worry about it sometimes.
Almost one in five (19 per cent) said that if they did lose their home because they couldn’t afford housing costs they would have nothing to fall back on.
31 per cent) said they have savings to fall back on, while half (51 per cent) could turn to family and 16 per cent to their friends. The survey also found that nearly half (45 per cent) of those polled agree that anyone could become homeless and it just takes a run of bad luck for it to happen.
37 per cent say they have had to leave their home because they couldn’t afford to live there. The most common reasons for someone losing their home were because they lost their job and could not afford their housing costs (18 per cent) and a relationship breakdown forcing someone to move (18 per cent).
Almost half (49 per cent) say they know at least one person who has lost their home. Alex Stephany, founder and chief executive of Beam.org, said: “Whether it’s mental health related, a relationship breakdown, or losing one’s job, the sad reality is that many people become homeless for reasons outside their control.
“But often, the difference between people tipping into homelessness or not comes down to the strength of their support networks.
“The people we support at Beam come from a variety of backgrounds but they usually lack this ‘scaffolding’ in their lives.
“At Beam, we’ve seen that a combination of upskilling homeless people and providing them with an online support community is vital.”
The Ginger Research survey questioned just over 1,500 British adults in December.