More than four million households in Britain have to use a credit card to be able to pay the monthly mortgage repayments.

According to the Breaking Point report by UK housing charity Shelter, 4.1 million homes or 16 percent, have had to resort to credit cards as means of funding the mortgage repayments.

The charity says rising mortgage rates and cost of living has had a straining affect on the nation, six million, almost one in four, households are suffering stress or depression because of their housing bills.

The report set out to discover what affect Britains chronic shortage of affordable homes to buy and rent is having on ordinary people.

Two million households say meeting housing costs is a constant struggle, with 400,000 falling behind with rent or mortgage payments. 6.3 million, or one in four homes, are spending less on food. Three million households have had to sell possessions to keep up.

The report says the Government must take immediate action to build more homes, protect people at risk of losing their property and end the widening housing divide between the housing haves and have nots.

Adam Sampson, chief executive of Shelter, says “Our new report and campaign show just how difficult it is for ordinary people to cope with spiralling housing costs, and how desperately unaffordable housing has become.

“People are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure they pay their rent or mortgage, but the affects of stress or depression, having to sell possessions or deprive the kids of treats can be devastating to family life.”

The report sets out a plan to help those with problems meeting housing bills. It also calls for mortgage lenders to use repossession only as a last resort, and provide more active and earlier help and support to homeowners. It also demands the Government to review property taxation to make the system fairer, including council tax, stamp duty, inheritance tax and capital gains tax.

As Shelter reveals these worrying figures, a Labour minister told UK families struggling with the soaring cost of living to stop being “so bloody miserable”.

The Daily Mail found the remarks in Transport Minister Tom Harris blog. He said that despite the credit crunch sending millions of Brits into depression, “our citizens have never been so wealthy”.

The minister also said people in the UK were spending so much money on food and clothes in such a short time that would have “made our parents gasp”.

Harris says the problem with the economy isn’t in the figures, rather in the attitudes of Brits. He says in his blog that people in the UK have: “crippling levels of cynicism and pessimism”.

The transport minister later apologised for his comments on BBC Radio.

Philip Hammond, shadow treasury chief secretary for the Conservatives, says: “Like his boss, Gordon Brown, he clearly lives on a different planet from ordinary hardworking families - who are struggling with soaring living costs, stagnant earnings and falling house prices.”

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