TENS OF thousands of tenants waiting for local authority houses are set to lose their places on housing waiting lists, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett has said.
Local authorities are in the process of implementing housing legislation which allows them to offer housing applicants private rented accommodation instead of council-owned properties.
The change would result in a loss of security of tenure for tenants and would end their ability to purchase their council homes, Mr Boyd Barrett said.
“The hopes of tens of thousands of young families are set to be devastated as they discover over the coming months that their long wait of up to seven, eight or nine years for a council house, has come to nothing. They will now never have a home they can really call their own.”
Under the housing legislation, tenants who qualify for the Rental Accommodation Scheme, where local authorities secure rental accommodation from private landlords, will be deemed to have had their housing needs met.
Mr Boyd Barrett said these tenants were being used to “bail out” property developers and a new class of “slum landlords” would be created by the scheme.
The policy came into force last June but has yet to be implemented by most local authorities. However, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has written to about 400 tenants who were on its housing list to inform them of the change. The letter states: “As officially your housing need is considered to have been met, your housing waiting list application has been closed.”
However, the letter says that provision will be made for tenants on the scheme before June 13th to apply for inclusion to a “transfer list” to allow them to be considered for a council house or a council-leased property.
A council spokeswoman said that following assessment by the council’s housing department, applicants wishing to enter the transfer list would be credited for their time on the housing waiting list from the date of their original approved housing application.
A Department of the Environment spokesman said while tenants on the rental scheme were considered to have their housing needs met, local authorities had been instructed to devise a “pathway” from the scheme to other forms of social housing.
“It’s a matter for the local authority as to how they achieve this in the context of their allocation scheme,” he said.
