A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. Houses use a range of different roofing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. Houses generally have doors or locks to secure the dwelling space and protect its inhabitants and contents from burglars or other trespassers. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain one or more bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. A house may have a separate dining room, or the eating area may be integrated into the kitchen or another room. Some large houses in North America have a recreation room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock may share part of the house with humans.
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for the average adult. The cost of housing, such as the rent for an apartment, usually makes up the largest proportion of this estimate, so economists track the real estate market and other housing cost indicators as a major influence on the poverty line. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
A roommate is a person with whom one shares a living facility such as a room or dormitory except when being family or romantically involved. Similar terms include dorm-mate, suite-mate, housemate, or flatmate. Flatmate is the term most commonly used in New Zealand, when referring to the rental of an unshared room within any type of dwelling. Another similar term is sharemate. A sharehome is a model of household in which a group of usually unrelated people reside together, including lease-by-room arrangements. The term generally applies to people living together in rental properties rather than in properties in which any resident is an owner occupier. In the United Kingdom, the term "roommate" means a person sharing the same bedroom; in the United States and Canada, "roommate" and "housemate" are used interchangeably regardless of whether a bedroom is shared, although at US universities having a roommate commonly implies sharing a bedroom. This article uses the term "roommate" in the US sense of a person one shares a residence with who is not a relative or significant other. The informal term for roommate is roomie, which is commonly used by university students and members of the younger generation.
A dormitory, also known as a hall of residence or a residence hall, is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university students. In some countries, it can also refer to a room containing several beds accommodating people.
A boarding house is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. It normally provides "room and board," with some meals as well as accommodation.
A studio apartment, or studio condo also known as a studio flat (UK), self-contained apartment (Nigeria), efficiency apartment, bed-sitter (Kenya), or bachelor apartment, is a small dwelling in which the normal functions of a number of rooms – often the living room, bedroom, and kitchen – are combined into a single room.
A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterized by its usage for sleeping. A typical western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds, a clothes closet, and bedside table and dressing table, both of which usually contain drawers. Except in bungalows, ranch style homes, ground floor apartments, or one-storey motels, bedrooms are usually on one of the floors of a dwelling that is above ground level. Beds range from a crib for an infant; a single or twin bed for a toddler, child, teenager or single adult; to bigger sizes like a full, double, queen, king or California king). Beds and bedrooms are often devised to create barriers to insects and vermin, especially mosquitoes, and to dampen or contain light or noise to aid sleep and privacy.
A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is important to economics and inheritance.
State housing is a system of public housing in New Zealand, offering low-cost rental housing to residents on low to moderate incomes. Some 69,000 state houses are managed by Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, most of which are owned by the Crown. In excess of 31,000 former state houses exist, which are now privately owned after large-scale sell-offs during recent decades. Since 2014, state housing has been part of a wider social housing system, which also includes privately owned low-cost housing.
Single-room occupancy (SRO) is a type of low-cost housing typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes, or single adults who like a minimalist lifestyle, who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from 7 to 13 square metres. In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.
A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-income people, as rooming houses are the least expensive housing for single adults. Rooming houses are usually owned and operated by private landlords. Rooming houses are better described as a "living arrangement" rather than a specially "built form" of housing; rooming houses involve people who are not related living together, often in an existing house, and sharing a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room or dining room. Rooming houses in this way are similar to group homes and other roommate situations. While there are purpose-built rooming houses, these are rare.
An apartment hotel or aparthotel is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can "check out" whenever they wish, subject to the applicable minimum length of stay imposed by the company.
Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU), is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other, or stacked on top of each other. Common forms include apartment building and condominium, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single building owner. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.
Poverty in the United Kingdom is the condition experienced by the portion of the population of the United Kingdom that lacks adequate financial resources for a certain standard of living, as defined under the various measures of poverty.
The terms average Joe, ordinary Joe, regular Joe, Joe Sixpack, Joe Lunchbucket, Joe Snuffy, Joe Blow, Joe Schmoe, and ordinary Jane, average Jane, and plain Jane, are used primarily in North America to refer to a completely average person, typically an average American. It can be used both to give the image of a hypothetical "completely average person" or to describe an existing person. Parallel terms in other languages for local equivalents exist worldwide.
A housing unit, or dwelling unit, is a structure or the part of a structure or the space that is used as a home, residence, or sleeping place by one person or more people who maintain a common household.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which makes changes to the rules concerning a number of benefits offered within the British social security system. It was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 8 March 2012.
A microapartment, also known as a microflat, micro-condo, or micro-unit is a one-room, self-contained living space, usually purpose built, designed to accommodate a sitting space, sleeping space, bathroom and kitchenette with 14–32 square metres.
The bedroom tax is a United Kingdom welfare policy whereby tenants living in public housing with rooms deemed "spare" experience a reduction in Housing Benefit, resulting in them being obliged to fund this reduction from their incomes, move home, or face rent arrears and potential eviction by their landlord. The policy was introduced as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 passed during the Premiership of David Cameron. Bedroom tax is the most commonly used term for the policy, especially by critics of the changes who argue that they amount to a tax because of the lack of social housing for affected tenants to downsize to. The bedroom tax is also referred to as the under-occupancy penalty, under occupation penalty, under-occupancy charge,under-occupation charge or size criteria.
Housing in the United Kingdom represents the largest non-financial asset class in the UK; its overall net value passed the £5 trillion mark in 2014. Housing includes modern and traditional styles. About 30% of homes are owned outright by their occupants, and a further 40% are owner-occupied on a mortgage. About 18% are social housing of some kind, and the remaining 12% are privately rented.
