A national housing agency has called on the Government to ensure the State stops subsidising poor quality housing through rent supplement.
The administration of the supplement is to be transferred from the Department of Social Protection to the Department of the Environment.
National housing organisation Threshold said this planned transfer was “an important opportunity to address problems at the lower end of the private rented sector”.
Threshold said that by making the private rented sector more resilient and sustainable, instances of homelessness could be, in effect, reduced.
The agency’s national director Bob Jordan said the private rented sector was now “a key solution” to social housing need.
“It is particularly important in providing accommodation for single people, as bedsits and one-bed apartments are typically the housing units that a homeless person will seek when moving into accommodation.
“Single housing units in the private rented sector also tend to typify the housing someone occupied before becoming homeless.”
Mr Jordan said that to ensure private rented accommodation played its part in responding to homelessness, local authorities must ensure that landlords were fully compliant with their housing, legal and tax obligations.
Threshold has proposed a self-certification which it said would put the onus on landlords to prove their accommodation was fit for purpose before it was made available for renting.
“This should be backed up by a systematic and consistent inspection regime by local authorities that targets older and neglected properties,” the agency said.
Mr Jordan said rent supplement should be paid directly to landlords as a means of safeguarding the interests of tenants, landlords and the State, while at the same time allowing the state to regulate the amount of rent paid to landlords.
“As it stands, it’s up to the tenant to bargain with their landlord and – sadly – most of those at the lower end of the private rented market feel they have to put up or shut up. This means that many feel trapped in poor quality accommodation which increases their risk of becoming homeless,” he said.
Threshold and a number of other agencies will appear before the Oireachtas committee on the environment later today to discuss the provision of emergency, temporary and long-term accommodation for the homeless.