In a statement this evening, Richard Boyd Barrett welcomed the findings of the new ESRI report that will be published tomorrow entitled “Low Income Renters and Housing Supports”.
The new report finds that the number of household receiving rental supports has more than doubled in 20 years as the state has moved away from the direct provision of social housing to rely on private landlords and developers to support those in need of homes.
It further finds that the share of households eligible for social housing support has fallen from 46% to 33% between 2011 and 2019 and that the HAP limits are too low and do not cover the actual costs of rents.
Richard Boyd Barrett said: “I very much welcome this new report from the ESRI which looks at low-income renters and housing supports. For more than a decade I have been pointing out that the current and previous governments’ strategy have all been to effectively privatise social housing.
“This report shows that the increased numbers of renters receiving supports has more than doubled in the last 20 years as the policy has moved away from the direct provision of social housing to relying on private landlords and developers.
“It confirms what we have been calling for, for over a decade, that we need to increase the income thresholds for social housing, to directly provide these homes rather than relying on the private sector and to, in the interim, increase HAP limits to protect people from homelessness.
“Every week we are overrun in our clinic by people in desperate situations – those who are being removed from list, those who are in despair trying to find rental properties within HAP limits which bear no relationship to the extortionate rents in the private sector. These are among the main reasons why people are being driven into homelessness.”