Social Housing - Creating a monster

Sunny

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I might as well state from the beginning that I believe that there is a need for social and affordable housing in every civil society and I hate seeing families living in the hotels or homelessness and I do want us to do something

BUT

Came across a situation recently in my local area in Dublin where two new blocks of apartments were being built adjacent to an existing development on a plot of land that was in NAMA but was then sold to a developer. The developer is in the process of building over 40 apartments and nobody batted an eyelid until it came to peoples notice that the entire two blocks of over 40 apartments has been sold to a housing agency for social housing. I just found this to be staggering for a couple of reasons:
- These apartments were sold off market to a housing agency. They were never made available to the public. There are plenty of first time buyers in my area crying out for houses/apartments that they can afford and these would have been in their budget but they were never even in a position to buy. A 3 bed house in the area will cost close to 400k so these apartments were affordable for many first time buyers. How is it fair that not only do they now have to compete against other buyers but now have to compete against housing agencies with millions of state funds to spend and buy entire blocks privately?
- Two entire blocks of social housing. I thought the idea was to integrate social, affordable and private housing. 100% of this development will be social. How is that best practice?
- Social housing is there to help people and rightly so but I am curious to know how many people in social housing ever leave social housing. Has anyone ever seen any figures? I would imagine the number is small so are we just spending another couple of billion on creating a system where thousands of people are dependent on welfare?
- What impact is all this provision of social housing having on the property market? These agencies have hundreds of millions of euro to spend. This must be distorting the private market with regard to prices.
- Do we actually get value for money for all this spending? The list just seems to be getting longer and longer no matter how much money we throw at it. Beginning to look like the health service with numerous so called voluntary housing agencies competing for State Funds to spend. An entire industry seems to have been created.
 
Brendan brought up many of these points in TV3 a while ago. The lady from one of the housing agencies (I think it was DePaul) just kept repeating something like"But we live in a social democracy!" as if that justified waste, gaming the system and perpetuating a welfare trap which damages everyone.
 
.....many first time buyers. How is it fair that not only do they now have to compete against other buyers but now have to compete against housing agencies with millions of state funds to spend and buy entire blocks privately?

That's a very good point.
 
I might as well state from the beginning that I believe that there is a need for social and affordable housing in every civil society and I hate seeing families living in the hotels or homelessness and I do want us to do something

Agreed.

A 3 bed house in the area will cost close to 400k so these apartments were affordable for many first time buyers. How is it fair that not only do they now have to compete against other buyers but now have to compete against housing agencies with millions of state funds to spend and buy entire blocks privately?

I'm wondering, if a potential first-time buyer cannot afford a home, can they not apply for social housing? I'm going to take a guess and expect that there is a large cohort of working people who earn 'too much' to qualify for social housing and 'too little' to be able to afford a home of their own?

as if that justified waste, gaming the system and perpetuating a welfare trap which damages everyone.

I think it is unfair to suggest that providing a home is 'waste', or to suggest that the recipients of social housing are 'gaming' the system.
I do agree however, that the model in place excludes a lot of working people from owning their own home by virtue of the market prices while simultaneously barring them from social housing by virtue of their income levels.

A market failure if ever there was one.
 
Came across a situation recently in my local area in Dublin where two new blocks of apartments were being built adjacent to an existing development on a plot of land that was in NAMA but was then sold to a developer. The developer is in the process of building over 40 apartments and nobody batted an eyelid until it came to peoples notice that the entire two blocks of over 40 apartments has been sold to a housing agency for social housing.

Hi Sunny

What is the address?

People who have been working hard, saving hard and making sacrifices should protest this.

Brendan
 
I'm wondering, if a potential first-time buyer cannot afford a home, can they not apply for social housing? I'm going to take a guess and expect that there is a large cohort of working people who earn 'too much' to qualify for social housing and 'too little' to be able to afford a home of their own?

How much do you have to earn for it to be "too much" to qualify for social housing?

The limit for Council (rather than Social) housing varies between local authorities, but is €35k for a single person in a number of areas, less elsewhere.
 
If the housing agencies and local authorities are bidding up houses beyond the means of the low paid worker, that is a bit more than a market failure.

Somewhat an oxymoron if it is low paid workers being allocated the housing?
But granted, the whole thing is a sorry mess.
I read recently that the average two-income household in Dublin is €90,000 against average house prices of €360,000.
Im sensing that those lending to income ratios are starting to get stretched once again.
 
How much do you have to earn for it to be "too much" to qualify for social housing?

The limit for Council (rather than Social) housing varies between local authorities, but is €35k for a single person in a number of areas, less elsewhere.

Eh, €35k so?
 
Just an add-on to this. I do think it is highly peculiar for a social housing agency to 'bulk buy' property.
HAP is the biggest social housing support as far as I know, but they dont buy property.

Perhaps the OP could provide more detail - location, agency involved etc, lest there be any doubt about the veracity of this thread?
 
How has it got to a point where people earning more than the national average wage qualify for social housing? This is indeed a monster. Surely what the state should be doing here is trying to ensure people can afford to buy their own houses, not providing them with a house for life.
 
Just an add-on to this. I do think it is highly peculiar for a social housing agency to 'bulk buy' property.
HAP is the biggest social housing support as far as I know, but they dont buy property.

Perhaps the OP could provide more detail - location, agency involved etc, lest there be any doubt about the veracity of this thread?

Excuse me? I have been around this forum for a long time and I resent the implication that I am making up stories. I don't need to prove the veracity of anything. Basic research will show it is happening if you don't believe me. I am not going to give the location because these are still 40 homes at the end of the day and I have no desire to talk about 40 individual families on an internet forum. They are not the issue. The agency in question is Oaklee housing trust so you should be able to find the location yourself with a bit of effort. But all the housing agencies are doing it. They are even advertising looking for developments.

One other thing I should mention that it has come to light that at least one other housing agency was competing with Oaklee for this development. That means at least two voluntary housing agencies were bidding for a private development with a private developer using taxpayers money. You can't make this stuff up.........
 
One other thing I should mention that it has come to light that at least one other housing agency was competing with Oaklee for this development. That means at least two voluntary housing agencies were bidding for a private development with a private developer using taxpayers money. You can't make this stuff up.........

The government is under enormous pressure to build/provide housing for the homeless. It's therefore understandable IMO that something like this would happen. Those who are not able to buy a place of their own as a result of this are the biggest losers and some must be wondering, "why bother".
 
The government is under enormous pressure to build/provide housing for the homeless. It's therefore understandable IMO that something like this would happen. Those who are not able to buy a place of their own as a result of this are the biggest losers and some must be wondering, "why bother".

They might be under pressure but the taxpayer is still entitled to not have their money thrown at developers. Remember at least two housing agencies were bidding against each other and each of them were using taxpayers money. The only person who benefited was the developer. If this is going to happen, why isn’t there a central agency buying property and allocating to the housing agencies to manage. Again, it has turned into the health service and we are going to waste millions.
 
I have been around this forum for a long time and I resent the implication that I am making up stories. I don't need to prove the veracity of anything.

First up, I apologise unreservedly for any insinuation on my part that you are making anything up. That was not my intention, rather that in the absence of finer detail its possible that all is not what it seems.
Looking at my previous post I can understand how it could be construed as questioning your character - bad phrasing on my part.

Second up, the only info I could find on Oaklee housing is

https://www.oaklee.ie/about-us

I assume they are the organisation involved?
If so, is it not apparent that they are the developers of the housing scheme?
It would appear that are charged with providing social housing and that is what they are doing, providing social housing for older people, single people, families and individuals with complex needs.
 
First up, I apologise unreservedly for any insinuation on my part that you are making anything up. That was not my intention, rather that in the absence of finer detail its possible that all is not what it seems.
Looking at my previous post I can understand how it could be construed as questioning your character - bad phrasing on my part.

Second up, the only info I could find on Oaklee housing is

https://www.oaklee.ie/about-us

I assume they are the organisation involved?
If so, is it not apparent that they are the developers of the housing scheme?
It would appear that are charged with providing social housing and that is what they are doing, providing social housing for older people, single people, families and individuals with complex needs.

No worries, I know you didn't mean anything!

I never said they were the developers. They have bought the entire development from a private developer. And I also never accused them of not fulfilling their function. I am simply saying that is not fair that volunteer housing agencies are buying entire developments to the detriment of young first time buyers who are struggling to find property too and are facing disgraceful rents and that they are competing against each other using taxpayers money which only pushes the price of the property up. The idea of social housing is to integrate into the community but bulk buying like this is wrong for numerous reasons. I hadn't realised it was as widespread as it is until I looked into it.
 
I never said they were the developers. They have bought the entire development from a private developer. And I also never accused them of not fulfilling their function. I am simply saying that is not fair that volunteer housing agencies are buying entire developments to the detriment of young first time buyers who are struggling to find property too and are facing disgraceful rents and that they are competing against each other using taxpayers money which only pushes the price of the property up. The idea of social housing is to integrate into the community but bulk buying like this is wrong for numerous reasons. I hadn't realised it was as widespread as it is until I looked into it.

But they are the developers are they not?
The point being, they have a specific target clientele - old people, families, people with complex needs. The properties they develop will require specific planning criteria (wheelchair access, sufficient ground floor apts for elders, bathroom and kitchen design etc).
The corollary of all this is that had the development been made available to the private market for first-time buyer needs, then equally those elderly people and those with complex needs would be struggling to find suitable accommodation.

On the other hand, if social housing agencies are competing against one another, pushing up prices, then all that says to me is how desperate the situation has become - for everyone trying to find a home.
 
They are not the developers. They are the buyers. What's difficult about that? No different to you and me buying an apartment except they are buying over 40 of them There is no special planning. There is no special clientele. The people going into the apartments come off the local authority housing list end of story. Housing trusts don't get to decide on the people who occupy the properties. They only manage them. The development was designed and built to the same specifications as the private development right beside it. There is absolutely no special planning. Planning and building started before the properties were sold. The developer of the apartments had the choice to sell them on the open market but instead decided to encourage voluntary housing agencies in receipt of taxpayers money to enter into a private bidding war to buy the entire development and that is what happened.

And if all you see wrong with two or more agencies using taxpayers money to buy properties and bidding against each other is that the situation is desperate, then please never put yourself in charge of getting value for someone elses money. It is no different to the Department of Transport and the Department of Health deciding they both wanted to move into the same building and entering into a private bidding war between themselves with a developer. Do you really think that it is efficient use of taxpayers money to have one taxpayer funded body bidding against another taxpayer funded body? Like, I said, we are creating an industry with the various housing trusts and charities and I am beginning to see how we are going to waste millions and millions and still not solve the housing issue.
 
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