The Global Housing Crisis & Your Brain

In Sweden, people facing eviction are four times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population. Not struggling. Not unwell. Four times more likely to reach a crisis point — simply because of where, or whether, they can call home.

Housing is usually framed as an economics story. A policy debate. A market problem. But for the people living inside those numbers, it is first and foremost a mental health story. And the evidence — across continents, age groups, and decades — is consistent: where you live shapes how your mind works.

The inspiration

So recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Melisa White from ‘KindStay’ and the Human Safety Systems YouTube channel. KindStay are working with organisations in the housing sector to improve the experience of residents.

In this podcase, we spoke about the ways in which housing, temporary housing and poor living conditions was negatively impacting upon people’s lives.

A lot of ground was covered including: the aged housing stock in the UK and what that means for an ageing population; unstable housing and what that does to our minds; as well as, how people’s issues with housing and how that impacts the work of people in healthcare. See the Human Safety System’s YouTube channel (more details below):

Human Safety Systems (on YouTube): 'Insecure Housing: The Anxiety of Daily Survival'

Housing problems have become an rife in many high nations across the world. So it was fitting to flesh out the ideas from the my podcast with Melisa and focus this issue of Global Mind on the problems with housing and why we need to get housing right, for the health of a nation.

The weight of uncertainty and why it compounds

Think about the last time you felt truly unsettled in your living situation. Perhaps a landlord gave notice. A mortgage repayment stretched the budget to breaking point. A boiler broke down in January and no one came. Most of us have tasted this — the low-level hum of housing anxiety. For millions of people, that hum never stops.

Credit: Thalles Cazaroto

A 2025 policy briefing from Mind Cymru and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence maps three distinct layers of housing insecurity, each with its own psychological footprint. Financial insecurity — mortgage arrears, fuel poverty, unaffordable rent, raises the risk of anxiety and depression directly.


‘Spatial insecurity’ in the document, can be characterised as the threat of eviction, being pushed into houses in multiple occupation or feeling trapped into a neighbourhood you cannot afford to leave.

‘Relational insecurity’ is another concept, which can be characterised as navigating shared housing, depending on family you have returned to out of necessity, being quietly screened out by landlords wary of renting to people on benefits, amongst others. These introduce a more insidious harm: rejection, stigma, including a diminished sense of self-worth.

What makes this particularly sobering is a finding from Pevalin et al. (2017), drawn from 13 annual waves of the British Household Panel Survey covering over 16,000 people. The researchers indicate that it is not just current housing problems that damage mental health. It is the accumulation. People who had lived with housing problems over a four-year period showed persistently poorer outcomes for anxiety and low mood (using the GHQ-12) — even after their housing situation improved, their mental health lagged behind. Poor housing leaves what the researchers call a ‘scarring’ effect.

The impact starts earlier than one might presume

If the adult picture is sobering, the evidence concerning children and young people is particularly worrying.

Mitchell et al. (2025)’s systematic review synthesised 34 studies spanning 18 countries and more than two decades of research.

The finding is unambiguous: 79.4% of studies found that adverse housing conditions are directly associated with worse mental health outcomes in children and young people aged two to twenty-four. The conditions implicated include overcrowding, damp and mould, lack of access to a garden or outdoor space, energy poverty (the inability to keep a home adequately warm), indoor air pollution, and structural disrepair.

Overcrowding was associated with greater behavioural and emotional problems. Mould and damp — present in a significant minority of UK homes — was linked to increased conduct problems and emotional dysregulation in toddlers (Oloye & Flouri, 2021; Baird et al., 2022).

Energy poverty, namely living in a cold home, predicted and increased likelihood of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children as young as three (Midouhaus et al., 2019.

Perhaps most striking: more than one in ten children in England currently live in housing that does not meet basic Decent Homes Standards. We would not accept that proportion in relation to school quality or access to healthcare. Housing is as much a determinant of developmental outcomes as either.

If you want to understand the evidence more deeply — I'd encourage you to read the Mind Cymru and UK CaCHE briefing on housing insecurity and mental health (linked at housingevidence.ac.uk).

Reply to this email and let me know what comes up for you. I read every response

Summary

The Mitchell et al. review drew on studies from 18 countries — from the UK and Ireland to Spain, Australia, China, South Africa, and Canada — and the findings held across cultures and income levels.

Housing insecurity is not a Western problem or a developing-world problem: it is a human problem, and its psychological costs fall disproportionately on children, low-income households, and communities with the fewest alternative options.

Globally, housing policy is a mental health policy. It’s a big task, but professionals across various disciplines must consider this.

Take away

To know more about the work of Human Safety Systems, check out YouTube channel:g policy is a mental health policy. It’s a big task, but professionals across various disciplines must consider this.

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