12 Simon Communities of Ireland Introduction they can be left with very little money to live on after they had paid their housing costs. There was a The success of a housing-led approach is based view that homelessness was increasingly about on there being an adequate supply of affordable poverty – individuals simply lacking the financial accommodation with security of tenure. This wherewithal to sustain a home. Two respondents chapter examines the barriers and challenges highlighted that this issue was compounded for facing service users and agencies in accessing some service users who were being asked accommodation provided by social and private informally by landlords to pay extra from their own landlords. The chapter also discusses approaches resources to top up the level of rent being paid. by Simon Communities to providing their own Many areas noted that demand for housing in the stock of housing. private rented sector was also limiting the available stock. Wider pressures such as the state of the housing market was highlighted as Supply of accommodation impacting on demand across the country, as well as locality specific pressures such as student A consistent theme across this research was the demand in places such as Galway, or weekend dearth of adequate and affordable options for lets in the North West. people to move into. Simon Communities reported very limited access to social housing as well as Daft.ie publishes a rental report on a quarterly basis private rented accommodation. There were two to track trends in rents around Ireland2. The most main consequences of the limited supply. Firstly, recent report for the third quarter of 2013 showed there were very limited prospects for moving that rents have continued to increase. Nationally people straight into stand-alone accommodation. rents were 4.8 per cent higher on average than the Secondly, if a tenancy broke down, then there were same period in 2012. The average rent for a 2-3 limited opportunities to move someone straight into bedroom house was €842, compared with €804 a another tenancy, with a subsequent reliance on year previously. In Dublin, rents increased by existing options. between 7 and 8 per cent in the year to end of Q3. In the cities of Cork and Galway, rents increased A difficulty with social housing was the very limited by 3 per cent and 4 per cent respectively. supply, long waiting times for accommodation and priorities for allocations, which tend to be aimed at Furthermore, the supply of houses for rent has continued to decline. As of the 1st November 2013, the needs of families rather than single people. there were 8,200 properties nationwide. There Respondents noted the very limited referrals from were 1,500 in Dublin, 1,100 across the cities of housing associations, with a view that there was Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford and 6,100 often no transparency to allocations: it was not outside the cities. This was the lowest level of possible to see how people were being assessed, supply since November 2007 (although it is and that vacancies were not coming through to important to reiterate that whilst Daft covers a wide people who were homeless. Social housing was spectrum of properties, it does not capture all often viewed as a preferred option compared with types of rental properties). The continued pressure private rented accommodation, partly in relation to on houses to rent has implications for people living security of tenure, but also the standard of on limited income striving to find suitable accommodation on offer. Nevertheless, the limited accommodation within their tight budgets. access to social housing meant that service users were required to explore options for private renting. In some areas a further issue delaying access to housing was being able to afford up-front costs in Private renting the form of deposits. The need for service users to build up savings for deposits lengthened the A key difficulty in private renting was sourcing amount of time that was required in emergency affordable accommodation below the rent cap of an adequate standard. This problem was particularly severe for young people under the age of 25, as 2 http://www.daft.ie/report/Daft-Rental-Report-Q3-2013.pdf
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