Second to nun: Young women in London are swapping the cost-of-living crisis for convent living
Young women are finding cheap rooms and a ready-made community by moving in with nuns in London: it sounds like a laugh, but it says something serious about a crisis that’s squeezing a generation dry
Forget flatshares with strangers who steal your milk. A growing number of young women in London have found a very different kind of housemate: nuns.
At the Religious of Mary Immaculate Hostel in South Kensington, young women of all faiths and none are renting rooms in a convent and loving every minute of it. Daily Mail journalist Mimi Yates visited the hostel for a TikTok that quickly went viral, describing it as “a low-cost solution to a very modern problem”.
Sisters are doing it for themselves
The rules are simple. Only women can live there. Men are welcome in the communal areas but banned from the bedrooms. There’s a curfew on weekdays and weekends. And breakfast is provided every morning.
Sounds strict? The residents don’t seem to mind. One woman called Sophia described it as “cosy, safe, full of friends”. Another resident, Karen, is training to be a burlesque dancer. The sisters have watched her perform and clapped along.
The nuns even organise weekly movie nights. It’s less silent retreat, more student halls run by the kindest people you’ve ever met.
The harsh reality for young people
But behind the charm of convent living lies a much harder truth. Young women aren’t moving in with nuns because it’s quirky. They’re doing it because they can’t afford to live anywhere else.
The numbers are brutal. Young adults aged 18 to 25 are now handing over half their wages just to keep a roof over their heads, according to a 2025 UK Rental Affordability report. In London, the average rent hit £2,273 a month by early 2026. A one-bedroom flat? That’ll set you back £1,620 a month on average.
Think about that. If you’re earning the average salary for a young person in your twenties, roughly £31,000, you’re spending much of what you earn after tax just on rent. There’s precious little left for food, bills or anything resembling a life.
And it’s not just a London problem. Across the country, the average renter spent 41% of their take-home pay on rent in 2025, up from 36% the year before. That is not sustainable. That is a crisis.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Britons under 40 don’t own a home, with just 22.5% of those aged 25-34 owning property. More than four in ten adults under 40 have given up on owning a home in the next decade. Record numbers of twentysomethings are moving back in with their parents because the alternative is financial ruin.
Failure in the housing market
This is what happens when the people in charge let the housing market run wild for decades. When they build homes for profit instead of people. When they let landlords squeeze every last penny out of renters who have nowhere else to turn.
The nuns of South Kensington are doing something wonderful. They’re offering safety, community and dignity at a price young women can actually afford. But the fact that a 19th-century religious order is picking up the slack for a 21st-century government tells you everything you need to know about where we are.
Young people deserve better than choosing between a convent and a cupboard. It’s time to demand a fair future for everyone.