David Quinn: Some people are playing housing system
TO solve the current housing and homelessness crisis, we need to talk frankly about all its aspects, including those subjects we might not want to properly address. One such aspect is that some people are ‘playing the system’ and therefore are artificially driving up the homelessness figures. This is only a small part of the overall picture, but it is there – and we should talk about it.
For example, a doctor told me recently of two women – a mother and her grown-up daughter – who came into see him in his surgery.
The mother announced to the doctor that her daughter was about to move out of the family home and become ‘homeless’, so that she could apply for social housing and get bumped up the queue.
Economist Cormac Lucey has noted a similar phenomenon. He said two public representatives told him recently of the phenomenon of so-called ‘strategic homelessness’, which is to say people who do have a house to live in but have become deliberately homeless in order to get quicker access to social housing.
How widespread is this phenomenon? It would be good to get a handle on it so that we can determine the extent to which the system is being abused.
Earlier this week, the Government announced that it was considering introducing a new rule, whereby someone on the social housing waiting list would only be allowed to refuse one socialhousing offer, after which they would be moved down the list or else removed from it entirely.
How desperate can a person’s need be if they can turn down the offer of a social-housing unit?
The announcement was made after figures had been released under a Freedom of Information request, showing that 3,000 social housing offers had been turned down over the last two years.
In the Cork City Council area, for example, there were 468 refusals over the two-year period, but it was deemed by the local authority that only 10pc of the refusals were on reasonable grounds.
In the year to December 2015, one in five offers of social housing was turned down in Dublin city, where the homeless crisis is most severe.
In Cork city, by contrast, the refusal rate was 40pc.
Most often, a house was turned down because it wasn’t big enough or it was in the ‘wrong area’ – meaning, for example, not close enough to family.
Lots of people around the country are not poor enough to qualify for social housing but aren’t well enough off to buy a house of the desired size or one that is sufficiently close to their family. There is no one they can negotiate with to get an offer of a better house.
Those who are on the social housing waiting list are overwhelmingly out of work. Only 20pc are employed.
If you are one of the working poor who is not eligible for social housing, you might end up calculating that you are better off out of work because then you can apply for social housing and also refuse an offer you don’t like.
This creates the sort of perverse incentive that bedevils the welfare system and which also leaves it prone to being ‘gamed’.
This aspect of the housing crisis has been spoken about a little, but not enough.
An aspect that has not been talked about at all is the impact of immigration. Neighbouring countries have debates about immigration – and I just don’t mean Britain. There are debates in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Italy. Actually, just about anywhere but Ireland.
This doesn’t necessarily mean we are more open-minded than those other countries. It may simply mean we aren’t informed enough to have a proper debate.
According to a report called the ‘Summary of Social Housing Assessments 2016’, no fewer than 28pc of the people on the social housing waiting list are non-Irish citizens. That is a very high figure, much higher than the percentage of non-Irish citizens living in the country.
Of the 28pc, 20pc are from the European Economic Area (basically the EU plus a handful of non-EU countries, like Norway). The remaining 8pc are from outside the area. In the other countries mentioned, these figures raise eyebrows. They helped to propel Britain towards the EU exit door.
Unless we leave the EU, we can do nothing about the 20pc figure. But what about the remainder, which is almost 30pc of the total for non-Irish citizens? Shouldn’t we be looking at the number of non-EU citizens entering Ireland? Only 10pc of the non-European citizens on the waiting list are refugees, so the vast majority are economic migrants.
Surely an economic migrant, by definition, should be allowed into a country only when they can contribute to the economy. Otherwise, you are disadvantaging Irish citizens, such as those on the housing lists.
The biggest contributor to the homelessness and housing crisis is obviously the lack of supply of homes. But Ireland is far from being the only country with this problem.
It appears to be systemic across a great deal of the Western world and it is disproportionately to be found in the major cities. Our Government is not the only government faced with this problem. So, it’s not just an Irish problem.
When analysing the problem and its causes, we need to do so rigorously and shine the light wherever it needs to be shone. We need to look at those aspects of our immigration policy that we have control over, which is to say immigration from outside the EU.
And we need to look more closely at how the social housing system is being abused by some people and do something about that as well.
Penalising people who refuse more than one offer of a house is a step in the right direction.
Should we not be looking at the number of non-EU citizens entering Ireland?