Crisis of homeless: Call to end right to buy council homes
SCHEMES that allow people buy the council houses they live in and also pass them on to their children, will come to an end if the Government accepts the results of new report.
The report which was launched by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy yesterday, also found that sometimes the homes had been sold off at a third of their value.
According to the study, commissioned by the Community Foundation for Ireland, between 1990 and 2016, 43% of the council houses built were sold to tenants – in some cases at discounted rates of up to 60% of its market value.
The study says this has resulted in homelessness as people struggle to afford private rental accommodation and the crisis in homelessness put the Government under increasing pressure.
Among the recommendations made in the report to tackle the problem included compulsory deduction of council housing fees from social welfare payments and allowing local authorities to retain more property tax revenue.
The authors also suggested that local authorities streamline the approval process for new developments.
The report was produced by Professor Michelle Norris and Dr Aideen Hayden of University College Dublin School Of Social Policy. Community Foundation Ireland is a charity that helps community needs not catered for by government.
The report also suggested that parents whose adult chil- dren had moved out may be encouraged to move to smaller council houses and their homes given to families with children.
And it called for the construction of smaller houses for those older parents. According to the 2016 census, 30.4% of all city renters were living in council housing.
The report’s publication coincided with the introduction of the housing organisation, Home for Life, as a participant in the Mortgage To Rent (MTR) scheme, which seeks to help those in arrears to stay in their homes.
Under this new plan, Home for Life will acquire properties from lenders whose customers are in mortgage arrears.
These borrowers will be able to live in their home as a social housing tenant paying rent to the local authority who will act as landlords. The department also launched a new website dedicated to boost awareness of the scheme.
Mr Murphy said that the plans send a ‘clear’ message from Government that ‘help is available to borrowers... at risk of losing their homes’.
The report also noted that social housing demands were highest in urban areas and it recommends that the cities should retain more of their tax income and that less of it should be redistributed to rural areas.
The authors also believe that local authorities should be forced to ‘ringfence’ their rental income from other financial needs and that this rental income should then be spent on social housing management and maintenance.
The report notes that capital spending on new council housing plunged 94% during the economic crash.
In 2013, some €55million was spent – however, this has since increased to €561million in 2018 as the economy improved.
It said the State should give local authorities housing loans over a long period, to avoid this ‘boom-and-bust’ approach to social housing spending.
The report also calls for an increase in social housing rent and said the cost of building the home should be reflected in the rent.
Sometimes at a third of the value