Rent supplement rates the ‘crucial issue’ in homeless crisis

The biggest single reason driving the rise in homelessness is the number of families unable to meet the rents being charged by their landlords, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Homeless charities told the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection that urgent action was needed to address rent supplement rates in order to prevent more families losing their homes.

Mike Allen of Focus Ireland said some 13 families in Dublin alone had slept in their cars or in other places in the months of March and April alone.

The primary reason such families were unable to afford their rent was that the mechanism designed by the Oireachtas to protect such families – rent supplement – had been allowed to fall well behind real market rents.

Mr Allen welcomed the commitment by Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly to introduce greater rent certainty into the housing market.

But he said the “crucial issue with the crisis of homelessness today is rent supplement rates”.

“I do not use the word crisis lightly but I genuinely believe that because of the numbers involved and because of the family and children aspect of this new wave of homelessness, this is a crisis.”

In the week of June 16th-22nd last year, there were 247 families with 489 children in homeless accommodation nationally. Nine months later in the week March 23rd-29th 2015, there were 471 families with 1,054 children in homeless accommodation.

"Some of these families have been found bedding down in cars due to the shortage of emergency accommodation for families by the Focus Ireland intake team [which is run jointly with the Peter McVerry Trust]," Mr Allen said.

Major building projects

Pat Doyle, chief executive of the Peter McVerry Trust said there were a number of major building projects on the way, but that in the meantime there was a huge number of people in emergency beds that needed to be taken out of them.

Helen Faughnan of the Department of Social Protection told the committee the department recognised homelessness as "one of the most visible and distressing signs of the social impact of the crisis that has hit Ireland since 2008".

It had put in place a number of preventative measures to ensure people at risk of homelessness or losing their tenancy were supported under the rent supplement scheme where increased rental payments were required.

The Government had two initiatives to deal with long-term reliance on rent supplement. The Rental Accommodation Scheme which is in operation since 2004 and the more recent Housing Assistance Payment which is being rolled out in eight local authority areas, including a homeless pilot in Dublin. To date the assistance payment had provided support to more than 2,030 tenants.