Rental homes are in such short supply in East Yorkshire that dozens of people are bidding for every home that becomes available.
Across England, a private renter on a median income can expect to spend more than a third of their income on an average-priced home, according to government figures, and that is pricing a lot of people out of the market.
Donna Coupland, who rented a home in Driffield for 10 years, is looking for somewhere to live after her landlord decided to sell – and it had left her so traumatised she was unable to work.
Lettings agent Jon Myers said: “The demand and supply is in such imbalance that we’ve got far too many people trying to rent and just not enough houses available.”
Ms Coupland, 56, said: “We’ve left it too late in life to get a mortgage.
“What can I do? Nowhere will take us because we’ve got three dogs.”
Mr Myers, of Quick & Clarke in Beverley, said he understood the anxiety that came with no-fault evictions.
“That’s their world torn apart, and then they’ve got to go into the merry-go-round of trying to find [a property] and trying to be the best prospective tenant that they can be. So it’s a dreadful situation,” he said.
Ellii Leeming, who has been staying with family in Hornsea for seven years, said the hopelessness of being able to find a home for her and her daughter felt like it must have done in Victorian times.
“My mum’s only putting me up because she doesn’t want to see me homeless… I feel like a let-down to my daughter for not being able to have my own place,” she said.
“The only way that I’d be able to afford it is if a rich man came along and helped us with a home. That’s how bad it is.”