Love in the time of a housing crisis

You’ve all seen the bank adverts: two young people, hooking up on a night out, hope to keep things going back at one of their homes. Except home for both is the family home – neither feasible, nor romantic. ‘Time to get your own place’ is the bank’s pitch. Again, not always feasible.

The scenario might have been conceived to hawk banking services, but it’s a real, and common, anxiety. The housing crisis has been Ireland’s primary social issue (and ill) for many years now. Among its degenerating effects on society are the difficulties it places on people’s love lives. Whether it’s singles, like those described above, or those in relationships seeking to make forward steps with their partner – such as living together, marriage, home-ownership or having children – space and privacy are requirements that are currently in short supply.

Startling figures released last year by Eurostat show that the number of Irish young adults living at home has almost doubled in the past decade. A whopping 68% of those aged between 25 and 29 are living at home. (For comparison, the figure in Denmark is 4%.)

Dr Rory Hearn, author of Gaffs: Why No One Can Get a House, and What We Can Do About It, refers to these people as “Generation Stuck at Home”.

“The figures really are huge,” he says. “We have half a million adults living at home in their parents’ home. How do you have relationships when you’re still living at home with your parents?

“I’ve spoken to them and they feel like, ‘Oh, we do have a roof over our head and we’re not homeless,’ or, ‘We’re not paying massive rents.’ And, therefore, they feel almost self-silencing – they don’t want to be seen as complaining because they have this level of privilege that they can stay in their parents’ home … I think that’s part of why we’re not hearing about it.”

Rory continues, “There’s a real mental health impact, a self-esteem impact, of people being still at home. People feel a sense that they failed somehow, or that they’re not fully an adult.”

Most people’s expectation of a society is that when they wish to leave the family home as young adults, they have options. If they want to try living with their partner, they can. And if getting on the housing ladder for the next stage of their life and/or relationship is something they desire, it’s a relatively smooth transition. But when a state is unable, or unwilling, to meet these aspirations, there are obstacles: huge rents, undesirable conditions such as overcrowded houses and a basic lack of supply, all stifling the natural progression of relationships. And in some cases, this progression is actually accelerated when couples discover the best, or only, option to make rent affordable is to move in together sooner than they might have wanted.

Most tragically, parents and their children are forced to live in the home of the grandparents, or even rendered homeless.

After returning to Ireland from Australia a few years ago, Carol and her partner, both in their 30s, immediately sought somewhere in Dublin to live. The housing crisis dictated that, for two long months, it was friends’ sofas that became their shelter. The couple considered moving back in with their parents, potentially forcing a distance between them they did not wish for. Eventually, they found a bedsit in Dublin, which, Carol says, was “overpriced and tiny”. Still, it kept them together, and allowed the pair to start saving for what they most desired: a house of their own.

“I thought we’d be able to get out within three years, and we were saving for nearly five years, and that was living on nothing,” says Carol. One friend joked that she could write a book on her extreme budgeting. But even with every spare cent set aside, getting on the housing ladder was not straightforward.

“When we got mortgage approval, we looked at houses in Dublin and they were all terrible. Obviously, we had to go back to the drawing board,” she recalls. “We literally looked at the map and thought, ‘Where can we afford to buy a house?’”

Facing the prospect of continuing to be unhappy renters, the couple settled for buying a house outside of Dublin, in a county where neither of them had any roots. Happily, they are now settled in their new home. But such ordeals are now commonplace, and they can fray at both individuals and their relationships.

“People are really stressed by the housing crisis,” says Rory. “Will they ever get their own home? Will they ever move out of home? This is stress-inducing. It has major impacts on mental health and, of course, that affects relationships. It affects your relationship when you’re stressed, when you’re depressed, when you’re impacted like that.”

One of the most upsetting effects of the housing crisis can be when a relationship ends, and both sides are forced to remain under the same roof. “I am contacted by many people who say that they’re in relationships which have broken down, but they’re still living together because they don’t have an alternative,” says Rory. “In some cases, it’s amicable, it’s fine. But there’s some people locked into toxic relationships as well, because they just don’t see a way out where they would be able to get their own independent space. People who work in domestic abuse and domestic violence talk about that as well: the lack of housing options means that there are people who are staying in abusive relationships because they just can’t see [an escape], particularly when there are children involved. And so this is a really important aspect as well of how that kind of housing crisis is impacting our relationships.”

There appears to be little confidence among the Irish public that the situation will soon be alleviated; the only hope among those at the sharp end of the crisis is that they might be lucky ones who find a home fit for their needs. Until relief comes, many lives – and love lives – will struggle to reach fulfillment.

If you’re struggling with your confidence as a result of feeling held back from the housing ladder, check out our masterclass on steps to grow your confidence with life coach Mark Fennell.