Embargo: not for publication or broadcast before 00.01 am, 8 April 1999
Study finds one in five Bangladeshis live in overcrowded housing
One in five Bangladeshis live in overcrowded housing, compared with just 0.5% of the population as a whole. Bangladeshi's have twice as many people per room than white households, regardless of the size of their property. No other ethnic group even approaches this level of over-crowding.
The situation is worst for Bangladeshis living in Tower Hamlets, where a quarter of all households are Bangladeshi, a half of whom live in overcrowded conditions. the heart of the problem lies in the trend in Britain towards a greater number of smaller households as young people leave home at an earlier age and larger numbers of marriages break down. As a consequence, Bangladeshi communities, where the extended family remains strong, find that their needs for larger homes cannot be met.
Lack of bedroom space is the most acute problem they face – 43% of Bangladeshis live in households with insufficient bedroom space according to the bedroom standard. Nationally, only 3% of properties fail to meet this standard.
The consequences of over-crowded bedrooms are serious and wide-ranging. Sharing bedrooms, particularly with people of a different sex or generation results in a lack of privacy and loss of dignity for people who are unable to dress, undress, sleep or even pray undisturbed. Older siblings work late shifts and disturbed their room-sharers when they returned from work:
'One comes home from work and sleeps then the other gets disturbed, he's got to go to school, he studies first then sleeps, the other one would come back at two o'clock, then the other one does not and is not able to get enough sleep, then how is supposed to wake early and get to school?'
On a more practical level it means that people have nowhere to keep their clothes and belongings, which often have to be piled in carrier bags. Children have nowhere to do their homework and often end up studying in hallways or sitting on the stairs. Overcrowded bedrooms are a particular problem when one of the sharers is in poor health. The close proximity and condensation in these households also enables viral illnesses to spread rapidly throughout whole families.
Overcrowding also causes problems in relation to bathroom facilities, kitchens and other communal rooms.
'The bath and toilet should be separated... Now if one goes in there to wash his face, another wants to or has done the toilet, another goes to urinate, then? How is that convenient? They all get angry and annoyed. We don't overcome this problem. They're always angry.'
The impact of this is often greater on women than men, who may remain unaware of the inconveniences that their female relatives experience.
'If we have guests or relations over, and there are men in the sitting room, then the food has to be carried up to the bedrooms to feed the women.'
These problems are often exacerbated by problems arising from the design of the house and the increased wear and tear on the building itself.
The research clearly indicates that the demand for larger local authority properties in Tower Hamlets far outstrips the supply. However, under-occupation of housing is a parallel and contributory problem in this area, with tenants of these properties highly resistant to moving. The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that most of the larger properties in Tower Hamlets are located in areas to which Bangladeshis are reluctant to move. Fears of racism and a desire to be within a tight Bangladeshi community are at the heart of this reluctance.
Tackling overcrowding requires a range of interlocking strategies. More effective management of existing housing stock is the starting point, involving collaboration among all the social housing providers in a local authority area. This includes freeing-up under-occupied properties for use by larger households, more sensitive housing allocation, and adapting existing housing stock to create larger houses.
There is also a need for housing providers to address two key design faults identified by the research. In overcrowded properties it becomes essential that all rooms have their own entrance, there is adequate circulation space and appropriate adjacencies of rooms. Consideration should also be given to providing dehumidifiers for bedrooms to reduce condensation, and heat-as-you-use boilers to ensure the availability of hot water. In addition to these general design features, however, there is also a need for the design of culturally sensitive dwellings for Bangladeshis.
Finally, these strategies cannot be fully effective without changes to the present system of housing finance which constrains the supply of larger properties and can also restrict housing associations' ability to use the properties they build to re-house their own tenants.