ESRI: 17% of people receiving rent support from taxpayer are in top half of earners!

One observation I'll make theres a lot of money in this and I doubt that anyone will want to hear or even coordinate a holistic approach........

Theres going to be more money thrown at this in the coming months , I believe a HAP review is due and recipients are already 6% more than 2020.
 
Last edited:
Paul O Mahoney said:
Well its huge money, the one with the Irish name cluid? is another 100m balance sheet but it has 650m in debt it very complex, some of the funding I noticed was at 3.25% AIB and other banks I never heard of.....of course this is all underwritten by the Government. Assets are €1.2 bn but they use an amortisation calculation that will need a bit of understanding.
Click to expand...
In effect is this just off the books borrowing by the State?
 
Purple said:
I find Charities operating within the Homelessness Industry are mainly concerned with making political points.

It is indeed.

There is a proliferation of Charities within the Homelessness Industry. I very much doubt that they are offering value for money. I suspect there is massive duplication, inefficiency and waste.

Edit: according to the London Times (Paddy edition) there are 27 charities providing food to homeless people in Dublin.
The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive said that Dublin's 4 Councils spend €159 million in 2020 feeding homeless people. That's €30 a week per person for 10,000 people. There are under 100 rough sleepers in Dublin. Where'd everyone else come from?
Click to expand...
I don't want to sound cruel here but having spent 2 years officially in the charity industry, "once if free ,everyone wants it".
 
Purple said:
In effect is this just off the books borrowing by the State?
Click to expand...
Yep clgs are legal entities covered by company law. Its easy for Government to outsource this and keep the taxpayer ignorant of the facts.

One report today said, and I paraphrase, " we are delighted to receive €175m to provide 4350 housing units, my sums aren't great but that's just over 40k a unit....take away "expenses" and its probably €10k , that's the Housing Agency report.

And this is just one of 27 large ones, theres probably hundreds local schemes, clgs, partnerships??????

Money for old rope springs to mind
 
Last edited:
Purple said:
Edit: according to the London Times (Paddy edition) there are 27 charities providing food to homeless people in Dublin.
The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive said that Dublin's 4 Councils spend €159 million in 2020 feeding homeless people. That's €30 a week per person for 10,000 people. There are under 100 rough sleepers in Dublin. Where'd everyone else come from?
Click to expand...
Correction; According to this article there are around 4000 homeless people in Dublin at we are spending €40,000 a year or around €800 a week on each of them.
 
This is the Appropriation Account 2020 for Vote 34 (Housing, Local Government and Heritage) which may be useful.
It is the latest I could find.
 
Sophrosyne said:
Paul, I assume you are going to take account of total costs, land acquisition, site development, legal costs, etc
Click to expand...
Yes in fairness those who are acquiring land and all auxiliary costs are giving detailed notes on each spend. But I've only looked at a few in summary.

Should have added that under CLG status if the company was to cease the assets would transfer in full to a " similar " charity " and failing that the relevant ministry can take control of the assets.

So at least the taxpayer is getting good assets that will be held.
 
Last edited:
Purple said:
Correction; According to this article there are around 4000 homeless people in Dublin at we are spending €40,000 a year or around €800 a week on each of them.
Click to expand...
I think homeless is higher but the actual has never been agreed as many only count their clique.

I saw that but I think that 40k is fully loaded with costs etc.
 
Just when you think you know something you find something else pops up.

On Feb 1st 2021 saw the birth of AHBRA, Associated Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority with a budget of €1.2m for 2021 and has 21 staff.

I will allow anyone interested to search them and understand its remit to me it's just another layer of bureaucracy but I'll allow others form there own view.

All AHBs must register with this body and further up this thread someone posted that there were 27 AHBs well based on the register, which is downloadable as an excel spreadsheet , has 450 organisations that must be regarded as AHBs and registration appears to be still open.

Some of this are local AHBs and include single buildings such as refuge buildings.

I'm not going to speculate on what if any the smaller organisations get by way of funding but I think its reasonable to assume that some funding would be forwarded probably via Local Authorities or Local HSE offices.

Since this was only set up in Feb 21 they probably won't be reporting anything of substance until later this year.

Finally it's safe to say that most AHBs are CLGs and would be regulated by the Charity Regulator but now are additionally Regulated by this Authority.

The AHBRA also mentions in its Strategic Report that it will also be assisting Landlords and Tenants alike, and yet we have the RTB .

Then there is the Housing Agency which seems to be very similar to this new Authority. One thing I did find from its publications is that apparently to apply for housing assistance the family/ household income must be under €54k.

Well the only good thing is that I don't need to find out who many AHBs there are. And we now know that 4bn is the figure Central Governments budget for this part of housing, Ill have more detailed look at the larger charities over the next few days,of course HAP and other direct payments will need to be looked at too.

I find it incredible that for a country of 5m we have 450 AHBs but have at multiple Government agencies involved in administration of social housing really begins to shine a light on the amount of paper pushing that is happening.

While it's not exactly ideal to have over 10,000 people deemed homeless it's far from ideal to have hundreds of organisations assisting and billions being spent on a problem that isn't getting better..

During my search I came across an article from 2017 in the Irish Times and while it covers all charities, it was amazing to see that in some larger charities Government funding was less that costs, including salaries
 
Last edited:
Paul O Mahoney said:
I think homeless is higher but the actual has never been agreed as many only count their clique.

I saw that but I think that 40k is fully loaded with costs etc.
Click to expand...
The national figure I saw was 10,000. 4,000 was the figure for Dublin where the €159 million was spent.
 
When your herculean task is completed, perhaps it should be sent to the Expenditure and Law Reform department whose brief is to oversee public spending.

Or perhaps we need to revive An Bord Snip to cut out obvious duplication of effort in housing.
 
Sophrosyne said:
When your herculean task is completed, perhaps it should be sent to the Expenditure and Law Reform department whose brief is to oversee public spending.

Or perhaps we need to revive An Bord Snip to cut out obvious duplication of effort in housing.
Click to expand...
I still own the rights and name of " Profit before People " my sketch political party.

Our slogans are a bit rude but resonate with many hardworking people
 
Purple said:
The national figure I saw was 10,000. 4,000 was the figure for Dublin where the €159 million was spent.
Click to expand...
I might be confusing this with the Housing Agency who spent €175m on assisting 4302 which works out at roughly the same.

This is something else that's driving me a bit mad as there are multiple agencies reporting figures that are very similar in both amounts and people helped.

I'll try and get clarity but as each report is invariably 60-80 pages with the usual amount of guff its difficult to get actual facts.
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
This is something else that's driving me a bit mad as there are multiple agencies reporting figures that are very similar in both amounts and people helped.
Click to expand...
This Oireachtas publication from March 2022 is the best I've seen at pulling together the info from various sources. It puts spend on social housing delivery and supports at a bit under €3bn in 2021, more than tripled from 2014.

See Figure 2.
 
Paul O Mahoney said:
All AHBs must register with this body and further up this thread someone posted that there were 27 AHBs well based on the register, which is downloadable as an excel spreadsheet , has 450 organisations that must be regarded as AHBs and registration appears to be still open.
Click to expand...
That’s correct. The Housing, Local Government and Heritage Dept. distributes the funds to the LA’s and Approved Housing Bodies.

The Social Protection Department also provides a rent supplement.

This is the Appropriation Account 2020 for Vote 37 (Social Protection)

See pages 23 and 29 for Rent Supplement figures.

To put some frame around this, you could start with the different forms of housing assistance:

Nature of AssistanceFunded By
1Rented tenancy in property owned & managed by LAHLGH
2Rented tenancy leased (long term leasing) for 10-20 years by LA or approved housing bodyHLGH
3Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) where LA makes monthly payments to a private landlord, subject to t&cs including rent limits, on HAP tenant’s behalfHLGH
4Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) tenancy where the LA arranges leases with private landlords for homesHLGH
5Rented tenancy in homes owned and managed by an approved housing bodyHLGH
6Specific accommodation for homeless people, older people and TravellersHLGH
7Adapting existing local authority homes to meet specific household needsHLGH
8Grants to increase accessibility in private homes for people with disabilities and special needsHLGH
9Rent Supplement - means-tested payment for people living in private rented accommodation who cannot afford the cost from their own resourcesDSP

The confusion in the figure of those receiving assistance (not just the homeless) is likely caused by people receiving temporary assistance in the same year from different sources and so there might be multiple counting of the same people.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top