What is the connection between Dundalk town council housing policy and the economic crash? This isn’t the latest town planner’s joke going around the country but rather a very pertinent question the answer to which is having particularly damaging consequences for council housing tenants in the town.
Last month we highlighted the plight of tenants in one council housing estate who were being subjected to council officials taking photos of their front and back gardens. We also reported that residents had approached People Before Profit regarding warning letters for petty “offences” such as a spilled bag of coal in a back garden and grass that was relatively too long, relative to council specifications might I add. The residents finally came to their local People Before Profit representative having received a letter demanding they attend a “refresher tenancy training course”. Residents were mystified and angry. Mystified because as a refresher course, there must have been an original course and yet they had never heard of the likes of it before. The residents were angry because this was the last straw in a campaign of intimidation and erosion of civil rights carried out by the council over the previous number of months. A number of residents decided not to attend the course but one did and reported his experience to People Before Profit. He stated that the facilitator of the course had said that the council intended on bringing down the housing waiting list through evictions and that those evicted could not go back onto the housing list. Attendees were also told that they must allow council officials access to their homes without prior notice and that the council would report to social services. In a final insult tenants were asked, according to the reporting resident, to sign a document that confirmed their attendance at the training course. On further inspection this was found to be a document amending or changing their tenancy agreement.
What has all of this to do with the economic downturn one might ask? Housing has played a central role in the economic crisis but it is a role that is not as yet complete. Many analysts are predicting that the already disastrous number of people in peril of default on their mortgages is to increase considerably, with default and eviction soon to become a common occurrence. Many of these people will be adding their names to council housing lists, making long lists endless. Going on the housing list is a prerequisite to getting any sort of rent allowance or subsidy, so even those with no expectations of ever getting a house will be forced to add their name. This is a conundrum for councils who must make every effort to reduce the waiting lists. There solution appears to be like this; Harass present tenants, serve eviction notices for minor infringements such as spillages in rear gardens and the likes, evict the tenants who cannot go back on the housing list, give the house to another tenant to be harassed, reduce the waiting list.
More often than not when issues of council housing evictions arise, the discussion centres around anti social behaviour and the need to evict for the rest of the community. Increasingly however council tenants are reporting that the truly offensive tenants that make the lives of neighbours intolerable are not being evicted. Often it seem that these offensive neighbours have their friends and relatives occupy the homes of law abiding and peaceful tenants who have vacated their homes to get away from the anti social behaviours. The Dundalk town council authorities it seems have decided to persecute fine neighbours under the guise of an anti social policy and yet are not enforcing such policies on the real culprits.
There is an alternative and more humane solution to this problem but it will involve council authorities both elected and non elected developing proposals and pressing the national government. The number of ghost housing estates in and around Dundalk needs no narrative, we are all aware of them. Many of them are effectively owned by the state and although no one has seriously broached the question of what we are going to do with them, the answer will inevitably be that they will be used to reduce the housing list in an Ireland of stagnant unemployment and mass mortgage default. Well why wait?
People Before Profit in Dundalk shall be sending correspondence to Dundalk town council this week requesting a meeting on the treatment of tenants. We will also send proposals to the town councillors on developing a housing strategy that involves the free acquisition of ghost housing estates for the purpose of social housing. Check this web page regularly for updates.
Last month we highlighted the plight of tenants in one council housing estate who were being subjected to council officials taking photos of their front and back gardens. We also reported that residents had approached People Before Profit regarding warning letters for petty “offences” such as a spilled bag of coal in a back garden and grass that was relatively too long, relative to council specifications might I add. The residents finally came to their local People Before Profit representative having received a letter demanding they attend a “refresher tenancy training course”. Residents were mystified and angry. Mystified because as a refresher course, there must have been an original course and yet they had never heard of the likes of it before. The residents were angry because this was the last straw in a campaign of intimidation and erosion of civil rights carried out by the council over the previous number of months. A number of residents decided not to attend the course but one did and reported his experience to People Before Profit. He stated that the facilitator of the course had said that the council intended on bringing down the housing waiting list through evictions and that those evicted could not go back onto the housing list. Attendees were also told that they must allow council officials access to their homes without prior notice and that the council would report to social services. In a final insult tenants were asked, according to the reporting resident, to sign a document that confirmed their attendance at the training course. On further inspection this was found to be a document amending or changing their tenancy agreement.
What has all of this to do with the economic downturn one might ask? Housing has played a central role in the economic crisis but it is a role that is not as yet complete. Many analysts are predicting that the already disastrous number of people in peril of default on their mortgages is to increase considerably, with default and eviction soon to become a common occurrence. Many of these people will be adding their names to council housing lists, making long lists endless. Going on the housing list is a prerequisite to getting any sort of rent allowance or subsidy, so even those with no expectations of ever getting a house will be forced to add their name. This is a conundrum for councils who must make every effort to reduce the waiting lists. There solution appears to be like this; Harass present tenants, serve eviction notices for minor infringements such as spillages in rear gardens and the likes, evict the tenants who cannot go back on the housing list, give the house to another tenant to be harassed, reduce the waiting list.
More often than not when issues of council housing evictions arise, the discussion centres around anti social behaviour and the need to evict for the rest of the community. Increasingly however council tenants are reporting that the truly offensive tenants that make the lives of neighbours intolerable are not being evicted. Often it seem that these offensive neighbours have their friends and relatives occupy the homes of law abiding and peaceful tenants who have vacated their homes to get away from the anti social behaviours. The Dundalk town council authorities it seems have decided to persecute fine neighbours under the guise of an anti social policy and yet are not enforcing such policies on the real culprits.
There is an alternative and more humane solution to this problem but it will involve council authorities both elected and non elected developing proposals and pressing the national government. The number of ghost housing estates in and around Dundalk needs no narrative, we are all aware of them. Many of them are effectively owned by the state and although no one has seriously broached the question of what we are going to do with them, the answer will inevitably be that they will be used to reduce the housing list in an Ireland of stagnant unemployment and mass mortgage default. Well why wait?
People Before Profit in Dundalk shall be sending correspondence to Dundalk town council this week requesting a meeting on the treatment of tenants. We will also send proposals to the town councillors on developing a housing strategy that involves the free acquisition of ghost housing estates for the purpose of social housing. Check this web page regularly for updates.
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