In the years leading up to the creation of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) in 2014, social housing waiting lists were on the rise. In the years following the rollout of the payment, which is used to support low-income tenants in the private rented sector, numbers have fallen. In those years there has not been a commensurate increase in the construction of housing by local authorities. The reduction in waiting list figures has been achieved largely by removing from those lists applicants who have accepted a HAP tenancy.
HAP tenants, who have the majority of their rent paid by their local authority, no longer appear on the housing waiting list as, under legislation, their housing need is deemed to have been met. It’s clear, then, that the figures do not tell the whole story. Still, it is significant that a report from Oireachtas financial watchdog, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) found that removal of HAP recipients from housing waiting lists had the potential to “mask” and “distort” the extent of social housing need.
It is noteworthy that the PBO quantifies what it finds to be the true extent of social housing need, which is essentially double the official waiting list. It arrives at this figure by adding the numbers on the waiting list – approximately 60,000 – to the numbers in receipt of HAP, some 62,000 last year.
Again, this is not a task requiring honours maths. The reason it is noteworthy is there is no consensus on this seemingly simple calculation.
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Some, including Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien, say the sum is not accurate because not all HAP tenants want a council house, but perhaps just need support for a certain period to afford the rent.
This would be a fair point if HAP was used in the manner of its original intent – as a limited, short to medium term support allowing people in temporary financial difficulty to continue, or take up, work which it was hoped would eventually carry them out of the social housing net.
However, HAP has become the principal mechanism of housing people who cannot house themselves. The PBO notes that its enquiries with the Department of Housing revealed the majority of HAP tenants choose to be added to local authority transfer lists, their only mechanism of regaining access to council housing once they have accepted HAP.
Yet, it says, the department could furnish no analysis of the motivation of those tenants to seek placement on the transfer list. If the Government fails to analyse the actual needs or housing aspirations of HAP tenants, as the PBO says, the “true scale of unmet social housing need in the State” will remain unknown, and the State will continue to fail to make adequate provision of housing for those in actual need.