Census reveals housing shortage - Telegraph Ms Boycott said: "It's no surprise that there's a low increase in the numbers of new households being formed. Everyday Shelter hears from young people who are unable to move out of home, or have had to move back, because they can't afford sky high rents let alone the deposits required to buy. Ms Boycott said that "successive governments" have failed to build enough homes to meet demand, pushing house prices even further out of reach. "This government urgently needs to take decisive action to build more affordable housing so that young people now and in the future can afford to move out, start their own lives and begin families of their own," she said. John Marais, of campaign group Defend Council Housing, said that there is a housing shortage across the UK, including in cities like Cambridge, where he lives. Even without the increase in population there is a drastic shortage of genuinely affordable housing. It's the failure of governments past and present to build genuinely affordable houses. "If there had been a reasonable rate of building houses we would be in a position where we could cope with these sorts of population rises," said Mr Marais. Recent research by the ONS found that between 1997 and 2011 there was a 20 per cent increase in the number of 20 to 34 years olds living with their parents. It said that last year there were 3 million 20-34 year-olds living with a parent or parents, an increase of 500,000 on 1997. The ONS said that the growth in the number of households between 2001 and 2011 was "the second lowest percentage increase in households found between censuses in the last 100 years." It said that typically the growth in households is between 8 per cent and 17 per cent. Only the period between 1991 and 2001 showed lower growth, the ONS said.