SPARK, as members of Irish Housing Network are 100% supportive of Home Sweet Home and Apollo House. This is a long, but necessary post.
Apollo House is not a solution but it is a symbolic statement showing the lunacy of people sleeping in doorways while the state owned NAMA has thousands of building unoccupied that could be made fit for use.
The outrage is that the state paid €25 million (in 2015 probably higher in 2016) to hotels to house families, while NAMA hold empty properties that are allowed to fall to ruin. The state pays €330 million annually to private landlords to house people on rent supplement and HAP (Housing Assistance Payment). Imagine if all that money was used instead to convert NAMA buildings into suitable homes for people. This wouldn’t just benefit people on the housing list, but if all these people were taken out of the private rental market, the overheated market would return to normal levels that ordinary workers could afford.
Our banks, that were bailed out by Irish citizens, sold Irish mortgages to foreign vulture funds, at a time of a housing crisis. Why did the government not buy these mortgages at the hugely discounted prices? We are told there is a supply problem, so why did we allow our supply of houses pass to foreign vulture funds to make huge profits and then allow them to use loopholes to avoid paying tax on their profits? Why are we paying foreign landlords extortionate rents on these properties through HAP and rent supplement? These vulture funds have pursued repossession orders against homeowners in arrears and have issued mass eviction proceedings against tenants.
In February 2011, the Labour Party issued a policy document on distressed mortgages, in which they stated that they would ensure rules around Mortgage Interest Supplement would be more flexible to help people who were having difficulties with their mortgage. They stated research that showed in 2009 that the average household claim for MIS cost €4,079 per claimant household, whereas the average payment under the Rent Supplement scheme was €5,490 per claimant household in the same year. It was therefore economically more efficient to keep people in their own homes.
This argument was so strong that this policy was accepted by Fine Gael and was included in the Programme For Government 2011-2016. As minister for Social Protection, Burton was responsible for overseeing these improvement, yet she did the exact opposite of the stated Labour Policy and the Programme for Government. The first thing she did was make a stipulation that homeowners could only receive MIS after they were in a successful MARP (Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process) agreement for a minimum of a year. That meant if they lost their job through illness,redundancy etc. they would have to reach an agreement with their bank and pay the agreed amount for one year before they could get help with their mortgage repayments. The basic social welfare payment is €188 per week and it is hard to see how anybody could make any reasonable payment that would be accepted by the banks for a year out of €188.
In October 2013, she then completely broke the Programme for Government by ceasing MIS for all new applicants (even those who had been trying to comply with the 12 month qualifying period) and it is being phased out for existing recipients. Her logic was that it was a waste of taxpayers money as that even after millions of euros of investment, the state had nothing to show for it’s investment. That is clearly true, however, it is equally true for rent supplement.
As a result of Joan Burton’s deviation from the Programme for Government, no financial support is available for mortgage holders in distress. Many people in these circumstances go into arrears and as a result their mortgages are parcelled up and sold off to vulture funds. After a repossession, most people are on the social housing list and are entitled to support with rent.
It is sheer lunacy that rather than help people stay in their homes at an average cost of €4,000 per annum, the government consciously chose to allow vulture funds buy up Irish property at rock bottom prices and then pay these foreign landlords €5,500 pa to house evicted families. Our government has not only allowed foreign landlords to come in and profit from the distress of Irish citizens, in an act that would have the founders of our state turning in their graves, they have facilitated tax avoidance for our foreign landlords.
The governments new plan to encourage building by private developers, is again leaving our housing at the hands of private developers and we have already seen where that has led to.
We support the demands of Home Sweet Home and call on the government to implement their demands. Housing is a right and we call on NAMA to release properties to house our citizens.
Spark Ireland Campaign 