SVP Quarterly Review of National Social Issues
The Society has urged the Government to set maximum rent limits for single people and lone parent households. Rent supplements were introduced as a short-term measure to alleviate immediate housing needs, but have developed into a long-term situation for many households. The basic intention was that the rent set by landlords could be met by families facing difficulty in obtaining accommodation through a tenant contribution of between €24 and €30 of weekly income in addition to the publicly-quoted rent for the accommodation. But unscrupulous landlords, finding that prospective tenants were dependent on rent supplement, raised the originally quoted rent, subjecting it to an imposition of “rent top-up,” an illegal change, but which those desperate for accommodation were prepared to pay. Such “top-ups” were not declared as payments by the landlord in order to avoid tax purposes.
In effect, rents were inflated to tenants on rent supplement, which itself was reduced by the Government last year. Following that reduction, tenants faced even higher “top-ups.”
The Society has told the Department of Social and Family Affairs that the situation of “top-ups” is widespread. As a result of these additional payments for accommodation, which are illegal, families already in financial difficulty and individuals, are forced into a situation where they have less money to spend on food and other basic necessities. Some tenants, in fear of landlords and of losing their accommodation, are unwilling to ‘go public’ on the situation.
The SVP investigation has found that there is “tacit acceptance” by some Community Welfare Officers and the Department itself of the existence of such illegally-forced payments, but nothing has been done to control them, due in part it seems, to a lack of staff to check the situation. The national Social Justice and Policy Committee of the Society of St.Vincent de Paul has expressed disappointment that no official State process has been put in place to assist tenants or to check that proper rents and no enforced “top-ups” are being paid.
“With Social Welfare reductions and the greater impositions on lower incomes for families already in difficulties, this situation must be addressed,” the SVP national committee has said. “As a result of ‘top ups’ we have been made aware by our local Conferences in parishes, villages, towns and cities throughout the country, that people are finding it hard to pay electricity and gas bills, finding it difficult to have enough to eat, making life very difficult. Some of the accommodation which the SVP has seen is very poor and there are examples of landlords refusing to carry out necessary repairs, even where this means tenants did not have heat during cold weather.”
Landlords in areas of high unemployment continued to charge high rents, imposing ‘top-ups,’ despite the reduction in Social Welfare and in rent supplement, which increased the level of ‘top-up’ demanded, according to one SVP Dublin Conference, the local parish unit of the Society.
Single, unemployed men, face particular difficulties in low-priced accommodation which is often substandard, the SVP investigation has shown.
50% of those on current local authority housing waiting lists are single men.
The Society of St.Vincent de Paul says that the solution to the problems it has identified should be through a system involving local authorities, landlords and tenants, to develop a mature, balanced, renting relationship, with quality controls on properties available for renting.
• Full details of the SVP Rent Supplement Review are on the SVP national website at www.svp.ie