Simon Community thinks rent allowance should be increased

Monife

Only 12% of properties are available to rent within Rent Supplement and
Housing Assistance Payment limits, according to research carried
out by the Simon Communities in Ireland.

The snapshot study of 1,150 properties in ten urban areas was carried out
over three consecutive days in May.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Simon spokesperson Niamh Randall
said the situation was desperate.

Ms Randall said of the 138 suitable properties found in the survey, there
were only nine units suitable for a single person receiving rental
assistance.

There were 17 units suitable for couples, 69 units suitable for a couple with
one child and 43 units for a couple with two children.

Ms Randall said: "We've got 90,000 people on the social housing list.

"We've got 3,000 people in emergency accommodation, one thousand
children in emergency accommodation - where is the
housing going to come from for these people?"

The organisation has called on the Government to take action to address
the crisis by increasing rent supplements and introducing rent certainty
measures.

Ms Randall said the group questions the decision of the Department of
Social Protection not to increase rent supplement limits.

She said the limits were set in June 2013 but in March of this year the
department said it would not be increased, despite an 18% increase in
rental rates nationally over the same period.

Ms Randall also called for an increase in rent supplement to be coupled with
rent certainty measures, which might offset some of the inflation in the
market.

Source: http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0630/711647-rent/

Increase rent supplement - Is she actually crazy? That would drive prices up even further. My husband and I are on low wages, but not minimum wage, and we can just about afford our rent (and it's a few hundred under the market rate for the area). I dread to think how people on minimum wage survive.

What do you all think is the solution? Obviously more housing to be built but is there anything that can be done in the short to medium term?

handlemaster

Monife wrote: »

Source: http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0630/711647-rent/

Increase rent supplement - Is she actually crazy? That would drive prices up even further. My husband and I are on low wages, but not minimum wage, and we can just about afford our rent (and it's a few hundred under the market rate for the area). I dread to think how people on minimum wage survive.

What do you all think is the solution? Obviously more housing to be built but is there anything that can be done in the short to medium term?

A scheme whereby landlords are insulated from the non paying tenants would reduce rental prices à little. Such as take on a welfare tenant government pays nearly full rate direct or whole amount.

Eric Cartman

"Simon Community thinks rent allowance should be increased"

No, it shouldn't
RA and RAS create an artificial floor in rental prices as landlords race to price SW tenants out of the market due to being burned in the past. This only serves to hurt the working people who want to privately rent, they should be the priority.

MouseTail

Of course Simon think the RA should be increased. They wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't advocating and lobbying for their client group. Doesn't mean its the right thing to do, or there is a hope in hell of it happening.

handlemaster

MouseTail wrote: »

Of course Simon think the RA should be increased. They wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't advocating and lobbying for their client group. Doesn't mean its the right thing to do, or there is a hope in hell of it happening.

Rental allowance is already going up just not offically

Victor

I think a blanket increase might be naive and counter productive.

However, funding for new housing has to come from somewhere. We've had 8 years of not much construction with a growing population and reducing household sizes.

athtrasna

I don't think that increasing it would help as much as they think it would. Until RA is reformed, and paid directly to the landlord for starters, the risk for the landlord is too great.

handlemaster

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/why-are-there-more-than-1-000-homeless-children-in-dublin-1.2273119

iguana

I do think that the limits on what rent you can pay in order to qualify should be increased and/or removed. A friend of mine rents in Dublin and pays €1100pm which is actually a very good price for a house suitable for a small family in a decent part of Dublin. When he lost his job and applied for RA he couldn't get it as he paid too much rent. It's really baffling. He would have had to move his family from their home, find a new place under the limits which isn't really possible and pay all the costs of moving. He wasn't looking for his whole rent to be paid, just the allowance amount as his rent took about 80% of his UB and did not leave them enough to live on. But with the allowance they could have just about covered all their costs.

Luckily he wasn't out of work for long, so didn't have to move but it's really evident that the RA scheme, at least in Dublin, isn't designed to help those who are genuinely between jobs. It seems much more like a longterm lifestyle choice because very few working people are living in rental accommodation below the limits because so little decent accomodation exists below the limits. So the scheme does absolutely nothing to help many longterm taxpayers in temporary difficulty.

Mrs OBumble

iguana wrote: »

I do think that the limits on what rent you can pay in order to qualify should be increased and removed.

This plus lots.

Removing the caps would also provide people with more choices: move to a cheaper place and pay less on rent but more for transport, or vice verse.

I live in the city centre. This mean that when I was between jobs I was very well positioned to take on temping jobs (eg someone needed a receptionist for 1/2 a day 'cos theirs went home sick). If I'd moved somewhere under the cap, there was no way I could have taken on so much casual work.

handlemaster

i.e social housing provided by the state you mean ? they tried that and changed tac a long time ago. all they need to do really is offer more to private landlords in guarantees for rents and the market would open up more. The problem at the moment is social welfare tenants are regarded as problem tenants.

gaius c

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

This plus lots.

Removing the caps would also provide people with more choices: move to a cheaper place and pay less on rent but more for transport, or vice verse.

I live in the city centre. This mean that when I was between jobs I was very well positioned to take on temping jobs (eg someone needed a receptionist for 1/2 a day 'cos theirs went home sick). If I'd moved somewhere under the cap, there was no way I could have taken on so much casual work.

Back when rents were lower, people on social welfare were able to outbid low-paid workers for accommodation!

@handlemaster
We need more available accommodation units full stop. Private rental sector is in chaos too.

Pawwed Rig

A good place to start would be the vacancy tax that they have in the UK. Where a council/social welfare tenant is living in a house that is bigger than it needs to be they are penalised a portion of their income to 'encourage' them to move to a more appropriate property (ie a couple with 1 child do not need a 4 bed house).
Also it baffles me why tenants who do not and will not ever work are provided with accommodation in prime city centre real estate areas. In these situations the tenants should be 'encouraged' to move somewhere that is cheaper for the State (ie us) and thus allowing a greater supply of accommodation close to work for people in greater need.

Murt10

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

it baffles me why tenants who do not and will not ever work are provided with accommodation in prime city centre real estate areas. In these situations the tenants should be 'encouraged' to move somewhere that is cheaper for the State (ie us) and thus allowing a greater supply of accommodation close to work for people in greater need.

Plus the worker has to spend their time and money commuting into the city centre every single day, making it less worthwhile to work in the first place

Gatling

Murt10 wrote: »

Plus the worker has to spend their time and money commuting into the city centre every single day, making it less worthwhile to work in the first place

Yeah but when the workers who are based in the city decide they want families they will be moaning they can't find a house because the non workers will be in the better places more suited to families .

What we need is proper management of housing stock and actually try reducing the current social housing lists by only allowing people who are Truely in need of social housing .not everyone who happens to apply

Pawwed Rig

Gatling wrote: »

Yeah but when the workers who are based in the city decide they want families they will be moaning they can't find a house because the non workers will be in the better places more suited to families

The available space outside cities in an Irish context is virtually unlimited given that we have the lowest population density in Western Europe. It is the city centres that are driving the prices at the moment. Therefore the situation you raise should not have to happen.

Gatling wrote: »

What we need is proper management of housing stock and actually try reducing the current social housing lists by only allowing people who are Truely in need of social housing .not everyone who happens to apply

The housing lists are broken. Noone who does not truly need one gets one these days. There are years of waiting lists for most people. Management of housing stock can only work for state owned property as the private rental markets are a free market which the government cannot and should not dictate to.

Gatling

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

The available space outside cities in an Irish context is virtually unlimited given that we have the lowest population density in Western Europe. It is the city centres that are driving the prices at the moment. Therefore the situation you raise should not have to happen.


The housing lists are broken. Noone who does not truly need one gets one these days. There are years of waiting lists for most people. Management of housing stock can only work for state owned property as the private rental markets are a free market which the government cannot and should not dictate to.

Very well aware of the waiting were 8 years in sdcc areas and I get the feelings it's another 4-6 years wait in front of us .
The private sector is a mess to a degree I've seen recently rental agents practically running auctions during showings playing couples and singles off each other to see who will pay the most .
That's not sustainable in its self

Hollister11

Rent allowance is a joke, and it needs to be sorted out. My parents use to rent out a house to a woman, and her kids on RA. It was an absolute nightmare. They didn't get their first rent, until 4 months into the lease, and for her last for months she cancelled it, so she lived in the house rent free for herself, and the state. She destroyed the house.

Rent allowance needs to be paid directly to the landlord, and the tenant should not be able to cancel it. If it has to go from the social to the tenant and to the landlord, it doesn't end well.

Icepick

These charities have good intentions but they lack basic understanding of economics.
Rent allowance should be wound down actually.

Gatling

Icepick wrote: »

These charities have good intentions but they lack basic understanding of economics.
Rent allowance should be wound down actually.

And what do you do with the 100,000 who are reliant on it to keep a roof over there heads