Guernsey's Housing Crisis Affects Thousands

Citizens Advice says it dealt with more than 3,800 islanders in 2022 and that most were concerned that the island has become an unaffordable place to live.

A report by the UK Office of National Statistics, on 'Private Rental Affordability in England Wales and Northern Ireland in 2021' defined 'affordable' rent as 30% (or less) of a household's income.

Citizens Advice calculated that in Guernsey the average rent is around 54% of median earnings.

The charity says this has led to an obvious increase in demand for its services.

Advisers dealt with 11,140 issues from 3,836 islanders last year.

Interim CEO Annie Ashmead says most people come to them about the shortage of affordable housing, with the cost of living crisis having a noticeable impact:

"This year alone, we’ve already reached the same number of people coming to us, as for the whole of last year about access to affordable housing.

People who were already finding it difficult to get ends meet, with costs rising the way they have, if their salaries haven't increased or if the cost of their rent has gone up, then they’re not necessarily going to be able to afford the increased costs."

This graph displays the reasons islanders contacted Citizens Advice in 2022. Housing is the largest proportion:

Annie Ashmead says when housing becomes unaffordable it causes contacts about other issues to arise:

"Clients could actually come in with one particular problem in mind that they want to discuss, and sometimes when you talk through them you find out actually there are more issues.

It’s a whole domino effect of things that happened in people's lives."

Housing has been the main enquiry for the past four years:

The second most common topic people contacted CAB about last year was their legal rights.  That was followed by money worries.

Citizens Advice Guernsey dealt with 1,630 specific debt and money issues in 2022 - an increase of 44% compared to 2021.

The charity anticipates demand for its advice service will increase over the coming year.