A revolution in affordable housing

A US housing concept has helped people to buy cheap homes. An east London scheme aims to replicate it

A few years ago, Colin Glen noticed something funny about his church. Nine in 10 congregants, Glen reckoned, didn't live anywhere near Epainos Ministries, a black-majority church in Tower Hamlets, east London. Many used to – but then they got married, had kids, and found they couldn't afford to buy a family home in the area where they grew up. So most moved out. "It was completely unaffordable to working-class families like us."

Tower Hamlets is one of the most deprived boroughs in London, but the housing crisis has hit here too. The average home costs about £370,000, far beyond the reach of many locals, 40% of whom have a household income of less than £29,000. "It was a desperate time for us," says civil engineer Glen, remembering 2007, when he, his wife and their two children got too big for their one-bedroom flat. "It's really traumatic living in a space you know you're going to outgrow, but which you can't afford to move out of."        Full Read