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

[Paul O Mahoney]

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

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.

From that list we know that HAP cost in gross terms €465m in 2020 for around 60,000 renters and the average was €7800 per rental, I read that there are now closer to 62,000 and a report is due on this in the coming weeks and its likely that the amounts will increase.

From the ESRI report that started this thread RAS was €133m there was a similar amount mentioned for another scheme but I'll need to re-read the report in more detail . I beleve the ESRI report also mentioned that €350m was received by County Councils in rent , dont know if thats a year, and I'll verify this , the cost of supplying council houses wasnt given.


I was thinking that if we were to ascertain the cost of each of these, the number of households assisted and then who feeds into the 9 catergories above be it AHB or a charity it might clarify things further. Most AHBs are charitys anyway.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

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.

Excellent thanks for the link. and its only 50 odd pages. This might save some time

 

[Mocame]

Just to point out the appropriation account and also the Oireachtas publication someone mentioned don't capture all public spending on housing, the only include 'voted expenditure' ie direct pubic spending voted as part of the national budget.

In addition to this the government provides approx 3/4 bn in loans to approved housing bodies pa through the its housing lending arm - the Housing Finance Agency. The Housing Finance Agency also lend for land purchase for local authority housing and for local authority mortgages.

Approved housing bodies are treated as public bodies from the perspective of the national accounts, so all their borrowing is part of the national debt. So between Housing Finance Agency loans and loans from banks and other sources they have probably adding around a billion pa to the national debt in recent years.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

The national figure I saw was 10,000. 4,000 was the figure for Dublin where the €159 million was spent.

The Figure in 2020 was 270m for the entire country.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Just to point out the appropriation account and also the Oireachtas publication someone mentioned don't capture all public spending on housing, the only include 'voted expenditure' ie direct pubic spending voted as part of the national budget.

In addition to this the government provides approx 3/4 bn in loans to approved housing bodies pa through the its housing lending arm - the Housing Finance Agency. The Housing Finance Agency also lend for land purchase for local authority housing and for local authority mortgages.

Approved housing bodies are treated as public bodies from the perspective of the national accounts, so all their borrowing is part of the national debt. So between Housing Finance Agency loans and loans from banks and other sources they have probably adding around a billion pa to the national debt in recent years.

And do the Housing Finance Agency farm out some of this financing to the main banks? the reason I ask is that I saw in some report Cluid? that some of its finance was from AIB at 3.25%, or are AHBs allowed to raise finance themselves?

And thanks for adding another Agency to trawl through.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I was thinking that if we were to ascertain the cost of each of these, the number of households assisted and then who feeds into the 9 catergories above be it AHB or a charity it might clarify things further. Most AHBs are charitys anyway.

Therein lies the problem - and not just with housing assistance.

It is possible, eventually, to cost the amount of each form of assistance.

The difficulty is ascertaining the number of individuals or family units that have received assistance. You can see from the list that it is possible to receive more than one type of housing payment, sometimes in the same year.

As far as I am aware there is no State database, nor is there one envisaged, that is person centred.

For instance, say you wanted to know how much assistance 5 individuals receive in total from State sources. Since the assistance might consist of several different types from the same entity and/or from several different entities. You might be forgiven for thinking that 55 different people were receiving assistance.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Therein lies the problem - and not just with housing assistance.

It is possible, eventually, to cost the amount of each form of assistance.

The difficulty is ascertaining the number of individuals or family units that have received assistance. You can see from the list that it is possible to receive more than one type of housing payment, sometimes in the same year.

As far as I am aware there is no State database, nor is there one envisaged, that is person centred.

For instance, say you wanted to know how much assistance 5 individuals receive in total from State sources. Since the assistance might consist of several different types from the same entity and/or from several different entities. You might be forgiven for thinking that 55 different people were receiving assistance.

The report that @NoRegretsCoyote linked to might help us with this, for example

"At end-2020, the number of households eligible for social housing support but with an unmet need was 61,880 (containing minimum of 112,000 people). In addition, a further 59,821 households were in receipt of HAP at the same point (containing an estimated minimum of 157,000 people). These cohorts are analysed and assessed, and a cost estimation of housing the approximately 260,000 eligible people (including children) via capital funded, long-term measures is presented." p.3

Further down p.5

"Taking account of the Departmental housing build cost estimates in 2020 for various property types, the PBO estimates that the cost of delivery for all currently eligible households with an unmet need would be at least €14.3 billion. Similarly, an estimated cost of over €15 billion would be required to provide a unit of housing for all HAP tenancies through capital means. Both estimates are based on 2020 build costs."

So, it would cost €29.14bn to build houses to allow all the above which is only 2 cohorts "have a home" at 2020 prices. so lets call it €35bn today

Again HAP cost €465m

 

[Mocame]

And do the Housing Finance Agency farm out some of this financing to the main banks? the reason I ask is that I saw in some report Cluid? that some of its finance was from AIB at 3.25%, or are AHBs allowed to raise finance themselves?

And thanks for adding another Agency to trawl through.

Approved housing bodies can borrow from whatever lender they like to provide social housing, most of borrowing is from the Housing Finance Agency because this is generally lower interest and also fixed rate. However even if they borrow from AIB this still counts as national debt because they are public bodies (in accounting terms).

Approved housing bodies sign a lease agreement with government which requires them to let the homes to people on the social housing waiting list. In return they receive a subsidy from government of up to 92% of the rent the dwelling would have received if it was let at a market rate. In addition they charge their tenants an income related rent like local authorities do. So they could get close to 100% or perhaps 100+ of market rent when both sources of revenue are added together

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Approved housing bodies can borrow from whatever lender they like to provide social housing, most of borrowing is from the Housing Finance Agency because this is generally lower interest and also fixed rate. However even if they borrow from AIB this still counts as national debt because they are public bodies (in accounting terms).

Approved housing bodies sign a lease agreement with government which requires them to let the homes to people on the social housing waiting list. In return they receive a subsidy from government of up to 92% of the rent the dwelling would have received if it was let at a market rate. In addition they charge their tenants an income related rent like local authorities do. So they could get close to 100% or perhaps 100+ of market rent when both sources of revenue are added together

Thank you that was my impression but thought I'd get a second view

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

So, after @Mocame provided another link and after my afternoon nap, CT/ MRI scans yesterday, I had a look at the Housing Finance Agency, again another report to be read, but it proudly states on its first page the it lent €1.04bn to AHBs to provide 4526 properties across the country.

Of course as Mocame said this is added National Debt and the question now is how much has been borrowed from the commercial banks .

Is it me or is this thing a beast of many tentacles and when we cut off one another batch appears.

From what I've read so far €4bn might be the tip of the iceberg but as more comes out by way of links the picture is getting clearer, but its becoming more difficult to understand why we are spending so much and the problem is no where being solved.

And why has the Government carried on this. Who's making skin in this ? For certain the taxpayer isn't.

The loan book is €5.2bn with finance available of €7.8bn (EIB CBE and loan notes )

 

[jpd]

Al subsidies go to the provider of the goods and services subsidised - in this case to the house and appartment builders and ultimately to the landowners

 

[bipped]

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.

That one had 60m turnover with 45m ish expenses.

All are clgs too but I understand that as I set up the charity a few years back and the accounts must follow Frs2 and the Sorp, and the regulators requirements

The garden is done a few hours from 5am to 11/12 will kill the morning

Great to see so much information and data on this
Difficult enough to get some figures, for example the new AHB register has 450 AHB's listed as at April this year, citizens information says there are over 500, RTB says 520 and the Social and Affordable Housing Alliance says over 540 are currently operating in ireland. The iCSH (Irish Council for Social Housing) a body thats around since 1982 has 270+ AHB member organisations.

Purple is right in earlier posts - there is a thriving industry around homelessness and provision of social housing, and there must be a lot of duplication between all the various agencies and charities funded by the state. Maybe it's the best way but its hard to see why the problem seems to gets worse year on year when so many are involved with fixing it.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

I think this is the nub of the issue there is a huge amount of data but nothing correlates even if one had all the lists and cross checked to identify the difference and then investigate why there was differences , for example some AHBs might no longer be active but assets are still held by it.

But more likely its rubbish data entry with nothing cleaned up when it changed.

However the PBO report on housing that was issued in March of this year is probably the best report I've seen as it consolidates all aspects of social housing and the costs of providing it and there seems to be only 3 channels of delivery which are HAP, RAS and via AHBs and " "voluntary organisations " ie charities.

From my reading all this changed after the 2009 act was passed, Councils were the main provider of social housing but from 2010 it essentially became a market with many participants and is still growing.

The report is very detailed and I assume has been audited to maximum level possible so, I'm going to use that and get the core data of number of people/households receipt of direct assistance via HAP and RAS two biggest ones and then try and see the increase in houses , either leased or built by AHBS.

It's the only way to start, today is Thursday and I've ran out of ink and paper twice.....ha

But there is absolutely no doubt theres a lot of money being made and the problem isn't being solved, in fact its getting worse

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

Just looking at my notes , and the list of questions I've posed myself and the biggest/main one is has the financial crisis caused this or has it been used by the Government to push this through despite the fact that it isn't working or workable.

The second question is are wages and salaries so low now that all these interventions are the only way of housing people, over 200000 people in this country are in receipt of either HAP, as per OP and RAS, yes there is a tax benefit from private landlords. ( families with children are counted here).

The third question why isn't this centrally controlled? having multiple agencies including charities being the main distributors of these benefits seems to allow the muddying of the waters and as pointed out data is inconsistent so how can you budget or forecast when you dont have accurate data, even 95% accurate would suffice.

There is no political will to fix this issue and I doubt that any future Government will change it either, the rental market is collapsing, building costs soaring even outside the present blip, and a culture of " I'll get some of my rent from the Local Authority,I'll be grand" has embedded itself.

5m people and we can't provide housing at an economic level as we did upto 2010.

The PBO report says " provision of social housing in Ireland is a highly complex issue " but we seem to have numnuts implementing it.

Whew......head wrecking stuff I'm off to paint the window sills

 

[Purple]

The second question is are wages and salaries so low now that all these interventions are the only way of housing people, over 200000 people in this country are in receipt of either HAP, as per OP and RAS, yes there is a tax benefit from private landlords.

The driver of all of this is Quantitative Easing.
According to this article only 8% of the money created through QE in the UK went into the real economy with the other 92% going into stock markets and property investments.
Increasing the money supply is an expansionary monitory policy. If there's no inflation as measured in the CPI then that growth is taking place in areas which are not included in the CPI, in other words asset price inflation. If there's twice as much money in the world but wages haven't increased then their real value relative to Capital (stocks and property) has been halved.
QE since 2008 has in effect nationalised the private losses incurred in the crash. My pension and my house have more than doubled in value since 2008 but real wage growth in around 7% and inflation, as measured in the CPI, has been negligible. That means the State is spending more and more money helping people to bridge that increasing gap between earnings and the cost of accessing ever inflating assets, in this case housing.

All of our policies are simply reflecting that reality.
That doesn't explain why the State has chosen to outsource so much of the delivery of that support to private organisations. If in fact it is the most efficient method of delivery it is a sad reflection on the structure of our Civil Service and/or the calibre of the individuals involved.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

The driver of all of this is Quantitative Easing.
According to this article only 8% of the money created through QE in the UK went into the real economy with the other 92% going into stock markets and property investments.
Increasing the money supply is an expansionary monitory policy. If there's no inflation as measured in the CPI then that growth is taking place in areas which are not included in the CPI, in other words asset price inflation. If there's twice as much money in the world but wages haven't increased then their real value relative to Capital (stocks and property) has been halved.
QE since 2008 has in effect nationalised the private losses incurred in the crash. My pension and my house have more than doubled in value since 2008 but real wage growth in around 7% and inflation, as measured in the CPI, has been negligible. That means the State is spending more and more money helping people to bridge that increasing gap between earnings and the cost of accessing ever inflating assets, in this case housing.

All of our policies are simply reflecting that reality.
That doesn't explain why the State has chosen to outsource so much of the delivery of that support to private organisations. If in fact it is the most efficient method of delivery it is a sad reflection on the structure of our Civil Service and/or the calibre of the individuals involved.

I'm not the sceptical type but I'm thinking that they made it this problem so that certain people could stay employed and Nama make a profit from all the crap that they " bought " of developers.

Then setup quangos who will issue multiple reports all the same length with the same claptrap but in a different colour and then push the narrative " look at all the people who are helping with the housing crisis "

Perfect machiavellian strategy and get the sops to pay for it.

 

[Purple]

I'm not the sceptical type but I'm thinking that they made it this problem so that certain people could stay employed and Nama make a profit from all the crap that they " bought " of developers.

The US Fed and the ECB made the decisions. We were just along for the ride. It certainly helped that NAMA could make a profit with portfolios that were fattened in the QE trough.

Then setup quangos who will issue multiple reports all the same length with the same claptrap but in a different colour and then push the narrative " look at all the people who are helping with the housing crisis "
Perfect machiavellian strategy and get the sops to pay for it.

Yep, being seen to be doing something is more important that doing something. It's hard to blame politicians for that since that's what the media and the electorate actually want.
There's usually no simple short term answers to complex problems but a good proportion of us vote for the people who say there are.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I understand your frustration Paul, when you try to analyze anything in Ireland you are up against non-existent/ insufficient data and poor record keeping.

However, I think you should persist in your efforts.

When completed, any informational gaps could be addressed to the Oireacthas Housing Committee.

 

[Paul O Mahoney]

I understand your frustration Paul, when you try to analyze anything in Ireland you are up against non-existent/ insufficient data and poor record keeping.

However, I think you should persist in your efforts.

When completed, any informational gaps could be addressed to the Oireacthas Housing Committee.

I'll keep going and have devised a plan HAP and RAS are straight forward it's the proliferation of 3rd parties in charities and Housing associations is where the difficulties arise, but once I find a reasonable starting point, that I can stand over I'll dig and dig and hopefully be able to see all the people involved, and then we can expose the utter nonsense this strategy is.

But as we all know putting ones head above the parapet in this country leads to all sort of consequences, but it needs exposure.

 

[lff12]

I will study the report later.

I wonder does it point out that if the state supports 50% of renters, it's bound to push up rents?

Its a long time ago but government of the day did apply significant restrictions to SWA rent allowance eligibility in 2003, and rents slightly fell that year.