Only breaking reliance on market and introducing serious rent controls can end doom loop of unaffordable rents
In a statement, Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit TD and spokesperson on Housing and Finance, said that the evidence provided by the C&AG and Department of Housing, at the PAC today, on the number of HAP tenancies and the huge number of top ups being paid by HAP tenants confirmed the dire financial consequences for both the tenants and the state of relying on private landlords and developers to deliver social housing through HAPs, RAS and leasing schemes.
Deputy Boyd Barrett said: “Tenants, those looking for rented accommodation and the state are now caught in a doom loop of reliance on utterly unaffordable and obscene rent levels.
“On the one hand, if we don’t raise the HAP limits, homelessness is set to increase exponentially in areas like Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown where average rents are now well above even the homeless HAP rates.
“The numbers of people coming into my office caught in this hopeless situation of looking for HAP tenancies within the HAP limits that simply don’t exist has increased dramatically over recent weeks.
“On the other hand, raising the limits will mean the public finances are utterly looted by profiteering landlords.
“The only way out of this doom loop for tenants and the state is to establish a serious regime of rent controls, that set rents at affordable levels. Simultaneously, we need to dramatically increase the output of directly provided public housing on public land.
“The government say this is happening, but it simply is not. The HAPS, RAS and leasing figures speak for themselves.”