“It said this was because some of those earning high incomes initially received financial support to rent when their incomes were low. They have since retained the rental support even though their incomes are now considered high.”
I might have missed it, but it doesnt explain how this happens. Or is it when you’re on the housing list and getting HAP you can never not get it, no matter how much you earn?
> The stark report shows that more than half of households that rent their home get State support to cover the cost
This is such bullshit. Instead of forcing costs down, let’s siphon funds from the general purse to funnel more money towards those who already don’t fucking need it. We’re all basically paying a housing tax directly into the pockets of the landed class or foreign corporations – never mind the payments made to developers just to build the houses we won’t get to own.
We’re being robbed in broad daylight.
The ESRI report also makes policy recommendations in terms of how to tackle this – and the fact that it will be difficult to do so politically because it means increasing rents for a certain category of people. The benefits to doing so are obvious, especially in that it makes providing housing support a more reasonable ask from Local Authorities as it allows costs to be bourne by those who can afford them rather than just being a black hole for funding.
>Addressing these issues will require significant reform to the system of differential
rents. Indeed, a unified national differential rent scheme has long been promised,
most recently in the Government’s Housing for Allstrategy published in September
2021. Such reform has the potential to address the weak incentives, highlighted by
O’Connell (1999), Norris (2016) and Corrigan (2019) among others, for local
authorities to invest in the direct provision of social housing, given that the ongoing
expenditure commitment represents an environment where rental income falls
well below management and maintenance costs. Our finding that a significant
number of high-income households in supported rental accommodation are paying
rents no higher than that of many lower-income households suggests that there is
particular scope to reform differential rents, by, for example, setting maximum
rents relative to the cost of replacement,
38 as well as by removing supplementary
caps on the contribution of subsidiary earners. This could enable local authorities
to raise additional rental income from their higher-income tenants while capping
rents at the cost of provision.
>Reform could also provide an opportunity to ensure that eligibility and levels of
support provided are cognisant of the wider policy framework, in particular the
embryonic tenure of cost rental. It is currently intended that rents for this tenure
will, as the name suggests, be directly linked to the cost of provision and unrelated
to income.39 Integrating this new tenure into the rental landscape, alongside a
reformed system of differential rents, offers the potential to reduce the degree of
segmentation in the rental sector and to limit the risk of an emerging category of
renters whose income is too high for them to be eligible for social housing support
but too low for them to be eligible for or to afford even cost-rental housing.
>Any such reform would inevitably create losers as well as winners. While these
losers are likely to primarily be higher-income households who currently pay low
rents relative to their incomes, the prospect of a large sudden increase in rent for these tenants could act as a barrier to reform. Policy might also have other goals,
such as the retention of a diverse socio-economic mix within an area (Norris et al.,
2022). These challenges could be at least partly addressed by providing a form of
transitional protection to any tenants adversely affected by the reform; for
example, by capping rent increases at some maximum rise each year from their
current level until they reach their new (higher) level determined by the unified
national system of differential rent. The specific design and parameters of any such
scheme would require careful consideration and is beyond the scope of this work.
Using our own money as a weapon against us to prop up an entire class of people who refuse to earn or work. Fine Gael are traitors.
4 comments
“It said this was because some of those earning high incomes initially received financial support to rent when their incomes were low. They have since retained the rental support even though their incomes are now considered high.”
I might have missed it, but it doesnt explain how this happens. Or is it when you’re on the housing list and getting HAP you can never not get it, no matter how much you earn?
> The stark report shows that more than half of households that rent their home get State support to cover the cost
This is such bullshit. Instead of forcing costs down, let’s siphon funds from the general purse to funnel more money towards those who already don’t fucking need it. We’re all basically paying a housing tax directly into the pockets of the landed class or foreign corporations – never mind the payments made to developers just to build the houses we won’t get to own.
We’re being robbed in broad daylight.
The ESRI report also makes policy recommendations in terms of how to tackle this – and the fact that it will be difficult to do so politically because it means increasing rents for a certain category of people. The benefits to doing so are obvious, especially in that it makes providing housing support a more reasonable ask from Local Authorities as it allows costs to be bourne by those who can afford them rather than just being a black hole for funding.
>Addressing these issues will require significant reform to the system of differential
rents. Indeed, a unified national differential rent scheme has long been promised,
most recently in the Government’s Housing for Allstrategy published in September
2021. Such reform has the potential to address the weak incentives, highlighted by
O’Connell (1999), Norris (2016) and Corrigan (2019) among others, for local
authorities to invest in the direct provision of social housing, given that the ongoing
expenditure commitment represents an environment where rental income falls
well below management and maintenance costs. Our finding that a significant
number of high-income households in supported rental accommodation are paying
rents no higher than that of many lower-income households suggests that there is
particular scope to reform differential rents, by, for example, setting maximum
rents relative to the cost of replacement,
38 as well as by removing supplementary
caps on the contribution of subsidiary earners. This could enable local authorities
to raise additional rental income from their higher-income tenants while capping
rents at the cost of provision.
>Reform could also provide an opportunity to ensure that eligibility and levels of
support provided are cognisant of the wider policy framework, in particular the
embryonic tenure of cost rental. It is currently intended that rents for this tenure
will, as the name suggests, be directly linked to the cost of provision and unrelated
to income.39 Integrating this new tenure into the rental landscape, alongside a
reformed system of differential rents, offers the potential to reduce the degree of
segmentation in the rental sector and to limit the risk of an emerging category of
renters whose income is too high for them to be eligible for social housing support
but too low for them to be eligible for or to afford even cost-rental housing.
>Any such reform would inevitably create losers as well as winners. While these
losers are likely to primarily be higher-income households who currently pay low
rents relative to their incomes, the prospect of a large sudden increase in rent for these tenants could act as a barrier to reform. Policy might also have other goals,
such as the retention of a diverse socio-economic mix within an area (Norris et al.,
2022). These challenges could be at least partly addressed by providing a form of
transitional protection to any tenants adversely affected by the reform; for
example, by capping rent increases at some maximum rise each year from their
current level until they reach their new (higher) level determined by the unified
national system of differential rent. The specific design and parameters of any such
scheme would require careful consideration and is beyond the scope of this work.
Using our own money as a weapon against us to prop up an entire class of people who refuse to earn or work. Fine Gael are traitors.