Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Repossession and depression

Since 1991 more than half a million households have had their homes repossessed and more than one million eviction orders have been made by landlords on their tenants. A study of 8,185 people over thirteen years used a questionnaire called the General Health Questionnaire to measure people's mental health and correlate this with their housing situation. The researchers found that for both men and women housing payment problems and getting into arrears with rent or mortgages had significant detrimental effects on mental health over and above the effects of general financial hardship.

Taylor, Mark P., Pevalin, David J. and Todd, Jennifer - The psychological costs of unsustainable housing commitments Psychological Medicine July 2007 37(6), 1027-1036

1 comment:

david said...

In the last year repossessions in the UK were up by 12%! Thats a crazy figure, by taking housing of people who cannot afford to pay their mortgages it is not helping the situation at all. something else needs to be done to stop this happening in the future, maybe the government should make people take out a Mortgage Bonds when they want a mortgage.