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TENANTS RECEIVING supplemental RENT payments are struggling to pay bills and buy groceries because they have to pay landlords premiums, a committee has heard.
People who receive the Housing Assistance Payment (Hap) have to pay between € 100 and € 500 each month to the owners, as the State payments do not cover the rental costs.
Charities Threshold and St Vincent de Paul told the Oireachtas Housing Committee that nearly half of tenants spoke of having difficulty paying bills, buying food, or covering childcare and school costs.
Hap is a form of social housing support available to people living in the private rental sector and is one of the four rental supplements.
There are currently 100,000 state-subsidized leases, which represents one third of all leases on the rental market.
John-Mark McCafferty, CEO of Threshold, said the maximum monthly rent limits payable for a home under Hap have remained virtually unchanged since July 2016.
“As such, they are well below market rent,” he told the committee.
He said that while local authorities may approve a 20% increase in Hap’s payment to help cover the rent, it is not guaranteed.
“It’s not surprising then that nearly half of the Hap beneficiaries we interviewed were paying a landlord surcharge,” added McCafferty.
“What was common across the board was that these tenants were struggling with day-to-day expenses as a result of recharging. This is because tenants will prioritize rent over everything else.
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“Rent arrears can quickly add up and result in a notice of termination.
“Almost half of the people we spoke to said they had trouble paying their electricity or heating bill, buying food, or covering childcare and school costs.
“A home, heat and food are the basic elements that we all need to live and have the opportunity to reach our potential. These tenants don’t have them. “
The committee was also briefed on how Hap beneficiaries struggle to find landlords who will accept them as tenants.
McCafferty said the interaction with the “ruling party,” the inspection of their properties and the administrative burden of completing the paperwork will discourage homeowners.
He also told the committee that while there has been a “softening” in the number of rental properties available in Dublin, it falls short of what is needed.
The number of available rental properties in the capital is understood to have increased since the Covid-19 outbreak, as many workers chose to move out of town because they were working from home.
“Somehow we are surprised that there is a smaller increase in (rental properties) than had been anticipated,” he added.
“In short rentals there are some but it is very modest, and since there had been so much demand that it was not satisfied in the market, there is a long way to go and a lot of capacity is needed.
“In Cork City, the situation is really as challenging as ever.”
Marcella Stakem, Research and Policy Officer at St Vincent de Paul, called for a full root and branch review of Hap.
She added: “For Hap to work in practice and work effectively for the next several years, we really need to look at it in its entirety and look at its connection to the private rental sector.”
Sinn Fein’s Eoin Ó Broin said that many local authorities take up to ten weeks to process Hap’s requests.
“Very few owners in the private sector can wait ten weeks before receiving a payment,” he added.
“It is causing a real hardship and neither the Department (of Housing) nor Hap will give us a direct answer as to why this is so.
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