Press Release
18th November 2021
The Simon Communities of Ireland’s quarterly Locked Out report has found there was just one property available to rent for a single person within HAP limits. Overall there was only 190 properties available under a standard or discretionary limit in at least one of the four categories. This represented a decrease of 79% on the 906 properties which were available within at least one HAP category in the June study.
Across all of the areas surveyed, only 1,017 properties were available to rent at any price in October. This is a decrease of 54% from the 2,208 properties which were available to rent in the June 2021 Locked Out report.
The Locked Out report examines the experience of people on a low income and dependent on housing assistance payment (HAP) to access housing in the private rental market. It also looks at the availability of homes to rent over a three-day period in October 2021. The report considers the availability of properties within both the standard and discretionary HAP limits in 16 areas around the country for four household categories: single person, couple, couple/one parent and one child and couple/one parent and two children.
The October 2021 study found just 23 instances of properties available within standard HAP limits for at least one of the four household categories. In 9 of the 16 areas surveyed, there were no properties available to rent in any category within standard or discretionary Rent Supplement/Housing Assistance Payment HAP limits. Those areas were Athlone, Cork City Centre, Galway City Suburbs, Leitrim, Limerick City Centre, Limerick City Suburbs, Sligo Town, Portlaoise and Waterford City Centre.
76% of all properties available to rent at any price were found in Dublin City which includes Dublin City Centre, Dublin City North and Dublin City South. However, these areas also saw significant falling supply and availability of properties within HAP rates.
Wayne Stanley, Head of Policy and Communications at the Simon Communities of Ireland, said:
“This Locked Out report indicates a worrying 79% decrease in properties available under the HAP scheme during the study period. This escalating lack of affordability is placing more and more pressure on the most vulnerable in the rental market.
The sharp contraction of supply, documented in this report, is likely to contribute to the rising monthly numbers of people forced to enter homelessness. These numbers demand that we respond with solutions that will prevent individuals and families from being evicted into homelessness. We will be calling again on Government to support the Simon prevention Bill.”
ENDS
For media queries and interview requests contact:
Aileen Gaskin
P: 087 7724 717
E: communications@simoncommunity.com
Editor’s Notes:
See Executive Summary here – https://www.simon.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Simon_LockOut_ExecSumm_Oct21_v6.pdf
See Locked Out report here – https://www.simon.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Locked-Out-of-the-Market-OCT-Full-Report.pdf
