Mixed reaction from councillors to new housing support programme
A NEW housing support scheme which will be introduced in Wexford next week met with mixed reaction at last Monday’s meeting of Wexford Municipal District.
Housing executive Liz Hore gave the members a brief on the new Housing Assistance Programme (HAP) which will be implemented in Wexford from December 1.
She said the programme will lead to an integrated housing support system which will be faciliated through the local authority while payment of the HAP fee to landlords will be managed centrally through Limerick.
She said HAP will allow people seeking housing support to return to work full time without losing support and will also improve the quality of accommodation as all HAP properties will be inspected by the relevant local authority.
‘It also supports better regulation of the rented sector and leads to better management of rental payments to landlords.’ She said HAP also expands choice to areas where there is little or no social housing and also expands delivery for single person households and other groups not service by social housing stock.
Ms Hore said that once HAP is introduced ‘ households with a confirmed long-term housing need are not entitled to receive rent supplement’. She said that the Department of Social Protection will be writing to long term rent supplement recipients asking them to engage with the local authority. Cllr George Lawlor said he welcomed the notion of a one stop shop for housing, however he said that previously there had been an issue with people who were on the housing list being removed from it if they availed of RAS. He wondered if this would be the case with HAP and would a person’s housing need be deemed to have been met if they were eligible for HAP. He also raised concerned about the income limits which would be applied to each case, saying that the Family Income Supplement shouldn’t be taken into consideration when assessing income. Ms Hore said that once a person has a roof over their head they are deemed to have been housed however she said that people had the option of going on the transfer list. However Cllr Lawlor said that a number of people on the housing list in Wexford had been on the waiting list for a significant period of time and to ‘attract them to private rented accommodation will be tough’. He said he was aware of one woman who had been ten years on the housing list and now her landlord is selling up. ‘If she was on HAP her ten years on the list would be gone.’ Ms Hore pointed out that HAP is not the only housing option available to people. ‘It is one of a suite of options,’ she said, adding that it was possible to transfer from the HAP list. ‘I have sought clarification from the Department regarding the issue of HAP applicants who apply for the HAP transfer list for social housing supports regarding their previous time on the housing list. The situation is that if a HAP applicant applies for transfer within two weeks of HAP letter their previous time on the housing list before HAP will be taken into account by the local authority and they don’t have to start from scratch. If you apply for a transfer after the two weeks, your previous waiting time won’t count.’
However she said that the traditional model of social housing is gone and said that HAP will ‘particularly benefit those people who are trying to get back to work’.
Cllr Anthony Kelly said that the council ‘should be building social houses. This should be a priority. The rent allowance was only meant to be a short term solution’.
Ms Hore said that ‘of course we want to be back building’ and pointed out that only recently funding of €7.5million had been allocated to Wexford for the provision of houses.
Cllr Davy Hynes pointed out that there were two derelict houses in Bride Street which were meant to have been renovated before Christmas but said there wasn’t a hope of this being done now.
However director of services Tony Larkin said that he expected these houses to be in the possession of the council by early next year at the very latest.
Cllr Deirdre Wadding said that she appreciated that the council staff were doing all that they can in difficult times but said that HAP was ‘a lot of smoke and mirrors’ saying there were too much of a reliance on the private sector.
‘ That’s where we went wrong before and I firmly believe that things will go wrong again. The key issue here is supply and how we keep up with demand. The houses in the rental sector just aren’t there at the moment.’
Cllr Wadding also said that the current rate of rent allowance isn’t sufficient to keep abreast of market prices. She also shared Cllr Lawlor’s concerns about the housing list. ‘Some people are reluctant to come off schemes because it will mean them coming off the housing list, especially when they have built up a lot of years. I just don’t think that this scheme will deliver.’
Cllr Lisa McDonald wondered why the landlord payments were going through Limerick and not Wexford and Ms Hore said having a centralised office for payment will free up local authority staff nationwide.