New measures will help reduce social housing waiting lists in Dublin – Byrne

“The new housing supply and rent stability measures announced this week by the Government will significantly help to reduce social housing waiting lists, particularly in Dublin”, says Fine Gael TD for Dublin South Central, Catherine Byrne.

“One of the key new initiatives to help address the social housing list is that landlords are to be incentivised to accept tenants claiming social housing supports, such as rent supplement payable by the Department of Social Protection and the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), payable by local authorities.

“There is also a specific measure to help alleviate waiting lists in Dublin. The maximum rent limits applying to properties that can be accessed by people assessed as being homeless in Dublin are being increased to 50% over rent supplement limits, where previously it was only 20%.

“The rent stability measures are also designed to help prevent homelessness occurring in the first place. Rents have been increasing at an unsustainable rate and curbing the way in which landlords increase rent will help to keep people in their homes.

“The Government is protecting tenants against arbitrary rent increases by extending the time in which rent reviews can take place from 1 to 2 years. The current requirement for a landlord to give their tenant a minimum of 28 days’ notice of new rent is to be extended to a minimum of 90 days, giving tenants a longer period to find new accommodation, if necessary. There will also be a longer notice period for tenancy terminations, again designed to give tenants more time to find a new home.

“Increasing housing supply is the real key to solving our housing shortage. A number of measures will stimulate the supply of housing before the end of the year such as targeted development contribution rebate scheme in Dublin and Cork, focussed on large scale developments at affordable prices. The Government’s €3.8 billion Social Housing Strategy will deliver 35,000 new social housing units and an additional 75,000 new social housing tenancies by 2020, which will greatly help to reduce demand and ease the pressure on housing waiting lists.”