Cork tenancy scheme ‘prevented 2,600 from becoming homeless’

A tenancy protection service which has been trialled in Cork for almost two years has prevented 2,600 people from becoming homeless last year, according to the national housing charity Threshold.

The Cork Tenancy Protection Service began in January last year and was designed to assist people in living private rental accommodation Cork city and county and Kerry at risk of homelessness due to rent increases.

The scheme fast-tracks applications for rent supplement increases above current limits to reflect increases in private sector rents.

Chairperson of Threshold, Aideen Hayden said the service, which is delivered by the charity in partnership with Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Kerry County Council and the Department of Social Protection, had proven highly successful and could be a template for a cost-effective way of keeping people in their homes if it was rolled out nationally.

“Increasing numbers of families with children are at risk of homelessness because they simply can’t afford the rent levels in Cork and the surrounding areas and there is a lack of opportunities to be re-housed in social housing,” said Ms Hayden.

She said since it began in January 2015, the service had helped 2,633 people, including 1,186 children, to remain in their homes and has assisted 1,227 callers with advice and support.

Ms Hayden said the most effective way to prevent homelessness was to keep families in their homes “through increasing their rent supplement payment to match market rents”.

“The additional annual cost of preventing 1,055 households from becoming homeless is €220,000, a fraction of the cost of providing them with emergency accommodation.”

The commitments made by Government to extend the service nationwide by the end of the year, as part of the Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness mean that Threshold will be able to more effectively support families at risk in all parts of the country, she said.

Threshold said without the service t the number of homeless people in the south west would be higher and also that almost half of the people who contacted the Cork Tenancy Protection Service were working in paid employment.

The report of the Cork Tenancy Protection Service, which will be published on Friday by Minister for Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Simon Coveney TD, shows 956 tenancies have been protected and 99 households found suitable alternative accommodation.

The report found the service had a 99.7 per cent success rate in preventing homelessness among people it dealt with while it also supported some 86 tenants to bring cases for dispute resolution at the Residential Tenancies Board.

Mr Horgan said Threshold would be recommending to Mr Coveney that the Government should maintain rent supplement limits to reflect current market rents and reform the administration of the rent supplement scheme to reflect the realities of the rental market;

He said the Government should also extend the Interim Tenancy Sustainment Protocol (ITSP) to cover areas further outside of Cork city including Bandon, Carrigtwohill, Cobh, Midleton, Mallow, Youghal as well as Killarney and Tralee in Co Kerry.

Other recommendations include the setting up of a strategic framework for the planning, organisation, monitoring and long-term funding of housing information, advice and advocacy services in Ireland within the new Department of Housing, he said.

And the Government should also consider increasing protection for tenants under notice of termination and introduce legal safeguards to give all residential tenants similar rights to tenants of commercial properties, he said.

Another positive development and major aid to tackling homelessness would be the setting up of a specialised Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) place-finders team in the South West Region to support tenants in low wage employment facing homelessness, he added.