Government could control rent ‘like they capped price of pint’

The Government could control rents rather than leaving them to the markets, a conference on homelessness has been told.

Impact general secretary Shay Cody said leaving rents to the market was driving people into homelessness.

“A couple of years ago the Government decided to put a temporary restriction on the price of beer. It shouldn’t be beyond their wit to do the same with rent for a period.”

The economy may be finally beginning to recover “but society is still extremely fragile” and an unfettered market approach never worked.

Mr Cody also criticised “the rush by local authorities to cut the property tax on day one on year one without any regard to the services”.

He said it was “frankly something that would be incredible to local authority councillors in Europe, and particularly if they are people of the centre or the left”.

He was speaking at a conference in Dublin organised by the union on homelessness.

Campaigner for the homeless Father Peter McVerry said street homelessness could be ended in weeks through the provision of Nama properties and a number of appropriately qualified staff to run them.

Sufficient appropriate accommodation could deal with emergency housing issues by the end of the year, he said.

He also claimed the Department of Social Protection was part of the homelessness problem "when it is meant to be part of the solution".

Rent controls

He called on Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton to increase rent supplement and “bring in rent controls that landlords cannot arbitrarily raise the rent by 10, 15 or 20 per cent”.

Ms Burton, who addressed the conference, was heckled by a number of homeless people and housing action campaigners in attendance.

Campaigners interrupted angrily and shouted “that’s not true” and “bull****” when she said the reason the numbers of people on rent supplement was going down was because a lot of families and individuals were going back to work.

Ms Burton acknowledged the questions put from the floor were important, and said she had no issue with that. She noted that some of the questioners were politically involved, and added that she wanted to engage in an open debate on a crucial issue.

She said the Government’s new social housing strategy would be published with the budget, and would include “a more ambitious build programme and the facilitation of increased private-sector construction”.

The Tánaiste said it would consider the “best mix of State funding, private finance and EU funds”, and set out “ambitious pathways” to maximise use of existing housing and to reform and resource the social housing sector.

Consumer price index

Chief executive of

Threshold

Bob Jordan

called for “rent certainty” for the one in five families now in the private rented sector so that rent increases would be predictable and linked “to the consumer price index or maybe capping it at a certain percentage”.

Deputy head of the Dublin Regional Housing Executive Dr Dáithí Downey said €1.4 million was spent on hotel accommodation last year. In August this year 294 families were in emergency accommodation, 164 of them in hotels. “If this continues Dublin would likely spend €4 million on hotels.”

An alternative under consideration is the provision of housing similar to units built in Amsterdam which recycled shipping containers into student accommodation, with proper rooms and appropriate facilities.

Dr Downey said it was quality housing but “cheaper because the building materials will not be renewable after maybe a 30-year period, unlike a building cut from stone which will stand for hundreds of years and is much more expensive”.