ONE in three cash-strapped Brits has had to borrow money to pay their rent, according to the housing charity Shelter.

The charity’s new figures show that over half a million renters have borrowed from credit cards, overdrafts or their family and friends to pay their rent in the past year.

It warns that huge numbers of renters are only just managing to keep a roof over their heads with 70 per cent of them struggling or falling behind on rent payments.

According to its research 800,000 private renters are not even able to save £10 a month. Now the charity is calling on the next government to invest in half a million living rent homes for working families over the course of the next parliament.

Anne Baxendale, director of communications, policy and campaigns at Shelter, said: “It just isn’t right that so many hard-working private rents are having to take on desperate or dangerous debts just to keep a roof over their heads.

“No family should have to choose between relying on their credit card to keep up with the rent or moving miles away from their jobs and schools to find a home they can actually afford,” she went on to say.

“Right now there’s nowhere for these people to turn but it doesn’t have to be this year. The next government must commit to building half a million new living rent homes to genuinely help ordinary families to get by and give them a firmer foundation for the future.”