#Budget19 prioritised private landlords over homes for families

The Government has failed again to address housing needs, writes Colette Bennett.

Budget 2019 was an opportunity to address the housing crisis that has blighted our society over the last number of years.

Instead it has prioritised levies to private landlords over homes for ordinary families.

By allocating an additional €121m for the housing assistance payment (HAP), raising the total estimated spend to almost €500m, over building the necessary number of social and affordable homes, Government has failed, once again to address this housing need.

Budget 2019 allocated €1.25bn for the delivery of 10,000 new social homes in 2019, a mixture of construction, acquisitions and leasing.

While this represents an increase of 20% from 2017 (and it is worth noting that just over 1,000 homes were attributed to local authority construction in 2017), it is still less than 10% of the actual need.

According to the latest Summary of Social Housing Assessments, published in September, almost 72,000 households were assessed as being in need of social housing.

This figure apparently represented a reduction of almost 14,000 on 2017 and was lauded as an indication that Rebuilding Ireland is working. But working for whom?

When you add the almost 38,000 households in receipt of the Governments’ HAP, the number in need jumps to 110,000. The reason for this difference is that households on HAP, unlike those on rent supplement, are counted as having had their social housing needs met and are therefore not included in the official figures.

However, there is very little difference in the security of accommodation between those households on HAP and those on rent supplement (and even less for the 7,000 households who were transferred from the former to the latter since HAP was introduced in 2014).

It is estimated that, by the end of 2019, 49,700 tenancies will be provided through HAP.

HAP does not provide social housing, it is a rebrand of rent supplement, not a housing solution, a subsidy paid by Local Authorities to landlords in part payment of rent.

The tenant must find a suitable property, convince the landlord to accept HAP (irrespective of the fact that refusal to accept HAP is a discrimination ground under the Equality Acts), pay the deposit (which in some cases can be multiples of the monthly rent) and any shortfall between the HAP payment and the market rent (which can be far more than the differential rent intended).

The tenancies are standard private tenancies, with no greater protections for social housing tenants than any other at a time when competition for accommodation is fierce.

Budget 2019 provided further supports to landlords by reinstating the full rate of mortgage interest relief. This means that, from next year, landlords will be able to deduct 100% of the interest on any loans used to buy or upgrade their rental properties from the total rent received before calculating their income tax.

An additional €60m was allocated to increase the provision by local authorities of emergency accommodation and “family hubs”.

Much like with social housing, the numbers don’t add up on homelessness either. In February this year, homelessness looked set to rise above 10,000 for the first time.

The department discovered that some local authorities were categorising the temporary accommodation of people in local authority owned or leased stock as homeless and directed that this be stopped.

At least one local authority resisted stating that these were temporary arrangements, in much the same way as hostels, hotels and B&Bs. In a circular issued last month, the department puts the number accommodated in this way at 741 — consisting of 251 adults and 490 children accessing emergency temporary accommodation, but left out of the official figures. Reclassification is not a housing solution.

It does nothing to change the situation for over 10,000 homeless people. It is therefore disappointing that the government has chosen to focus its resources on providing short-term solutions to what has become a long-term problem.

Choosing family hubs and emergency accommodation over permanent housing goes against the recommendations of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission whose report on the provision of emergency accommodation expressed concern that family hubs could normalise family homelessness causing families to be institutionalised.

This report recommended limiting the amount of time a family may spend in Family Hubs to counteract this. If Government persists with this policy of making homelessness an acceptable part of Irish society, Social Justice Ireland urges the introduction of a time limit by which long-term accommodation will be provided in line with recent calls for a right to housing.

Adequate shelter is a basic human right. Budget 2019 has continued to subsidise a precarious private rented market over the provision of long-term housing for its inhabitants.

Colette Bennett is research and policy officer with Social Justice Ireland