Could student digs alleviate our cost and accommodation crises?

With the rent-a-room scheme, homeowners can earn up to €14,000 a year without paying tax or impacting on social welfare benefits, writes Catherine Conlon

The Government is promoting the rent-a-room relief scheme, which Further and Higher Education Minister described as 'an immediate practical measure' that colleges and local communities can help with today. File picture

Irish households are facing a grim winter amid the biggest cost-of-living hikes in almost four decades. 

People here pay more than the EU average for food, drink, energy, transport, communications, and restaurants, the European consumer body, Eurostat, has found. 

The rising cost of living is damaging people’s health, according to the British Medical Journal, with over half (55%) of people saying their health has been negatively affected. 

The links between income and poor health are well established. The money people have is related to the choices they make about their health — more and better food; the ability to keep their house warm; being able to afford public transport to see a doctor. 

The rising cost of living also acutely affects psychological wellbeing. 

The evidence has long shown that poverty and destitution cause stress and what psychologists call "negative affective states". 

Experiencing poverty-related stress can limit your attention span and favour habitual behaviours over goal-directed ones. 

In other words, you are more likely to be short-sighted and risk-averse in your decision-making, which makes it more difficult to escape the poverty trap. 

The corollary of feeling trapped or helpless over the long-term will have a highly detrimental effect on your mental health. 

Research shows it nearly trebles the chances of being diagnosed with anxiety or depression.

Poverty is humiliating. It can stop people from feeling like they matter and deny the sense of being valued. 

The distress people affected by poverty experience arises from the inequality underpinning a faulty system — the system, not the person, is at fault.

The cost-of-living crisis is being exacerbated by the housing crisis which, in turn, is aggravating the acute student accommodation crisis currently unfolding. 

Property website Daft.ie has revealed there are just 716 properties available to rent across the entire state — down from 2,500 a year ago. 

The same report found rents grew by their fastest rate on record between April and June, with the average nationally now €1,618 a month — more than double the €765 average in 2011.

Higher Education Minister Simon Harris appealed to homeowners to consider renting rooms to students ahead of the start of the new academic year.  Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

The Government Housing for All strategy targets the provision of 90,000 social homes by 2030 as well as thousands of rent-to-build apartments in the private sector. 

Observers say the policies are not enough to meet current needs, never mind projected demand. To address the acute shortage of student accommodation, as the new term looms ever closer, Further and Higher Education Minister Simon Harris has appealed to homeowners to consider renting rooms to students ahead of the start of the new academic year. 

The Union of Students in Ireland has corroborated the student accommodation crisis, with many starting college in September struggling to source a place to stay. 

The cost-of-living crisis is adding to the pressures on families to afford rocketing rents for almost non-existent accommodation.

Mr Harris described the situation as "very challenging", admitting there is a "real housing supply issue".

To increase capacity, the Government is promoting the rent-a-room relief scheme, which he described as "an immediate practical measure" that colleges and local communities can help with today. 

Homeowners can earn up to €14,000 a year without paying tax or impacting on social welfare benefits. 

When it was last pursued to its full extent in 2018, about 3,000 students were accommodated through the scheme.

The Trinity University website suggests living with a host family is an economical and flexible option. 

The family may offer five or seven-day accommodation or this year may take bookings for a shorter week. 

Students typically pay for 25 to 30 weeks over the academic year and rent averages €165-€220 per week and utility bills are included in the cost. 

‘Digs’ were commonplace decades before student accommodation was readily available, or families had the financial wherewithal to afford the costs of anything but a basic room and evening meal for family members in college. Picture: Alamy/PA

Host families may provide optional extras such as breakfast and evening meals.

Could renting a spare room to students make a real difference to alleviate the immediate problem for students seeking accommodation, at the same time addressing the acute cost-of-living crisis that is likely to deteriorate further as winter approaches? 

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‘Digs’ were commonplace decades before student accommodation was readily available, or families had the financial wherewithal to afford the costs of anything but a basic room and evening meal for family members in college.

In his book, The Health Gap, Professor Michael Marmot says he "feels unrealistically optimistic all the time". 

"Despite all the doomsayers — the people who argue that all has been ruined — I judge that the evidence shows things can improve. I have developed selective deafness," he said.

"I don’t hear cynicism. If people say that no one will ever do things differently, it won’t happen, people don’t change and the like, it bounces off. I no longer hear it. Realistic, yes, but not cynical."

We could do with a dose of that optimism and game-changing determination to challenge the status quo as we face a long and doom-laden winter. 

• Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork and former director of human health and nutrition at Safefood