Failure to raise social housing thresholds and to use windfall revenues for “aggressive acquisition programme” guarantees housing misery will worsen
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett is today highlighting what he described in yesterday’s Budget debate as a “nasty sting in the tail” and a “stealth cut” in Budget 23- which “will lead to thousands more households being removed from the housing lists and denied HAP financial support over the coming year.”
Deputy Boyd Barrett, who has repeatedly called on the government to raise social housing income thresholds over recent years, pointed out yesterday in the Dáil and also today, that “any increases in net income for those on incomes close to the social housing income thresholds will now lose their entitlement to social housing and HAP support.”
Deputy Boyd Barrett also slammed the government for putting away €6 billion in available funds into a ‘rainy day fund’ rather than using such funds to embark on a “new aggressive programme to buy up vacant and derelict homes, HAP tenancy homes particularly where tenants face eviction, and to purchase more newly completed developer homes, which will otherwise be purchased by institutional investors.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD said: “The government’s refusal to increase thresholds for social housing and HAP eligibility means thousands and thousands more households will be flung off housing lists and simultaneously denied even HAP financial support. This is on top of thousands of households who have already lost these entitlements over recent years casting them into an utterly hopeless situation.
“At a time when more people than ever need social housing support or at least HAP assistance less and less people are entitled to it. This is a massive stealth cut that is not being talked about.
“It also beggars belief that the government have decided to put €6 billion into a ‘rainy day’ piggy bank, when that money should have been used to buy up vacant and derelict homes, HAP tenancies, particularly when families face eviction, and to buy more of the newly constructed developer homes, instead of housing institutional investors and vulture funds buying them up.
“Not only would such a programme prevent evictions, immediately expand the availability of social and affordable housing, but it would also save the state billions in HAPs, RAS and housing supports over the coming years.
“Of course, these measures need to be combined with other measures we have long called for, including rent controls to reduce rents, an emergency ban on evictions and a major expansion in the direct construction public and affordable housing. Budget 23 did nothing to ramp up the response to the housing emergency.”
He concluded: “This suggests the government either doesn’t understand the severity of the housing crisis or just doesn’t care. Either way it is a shocking and unacceptable failure.”