Ireland’s Housing Led Approach to Homelessness: The Way Home or a Path to Nowhere?
Transcript of Ireland’s Housing Led Approach to Homelessness: The Way Home or a Path to Nowhere?
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Ireland’s Housing-led Approach to Homelessness:
The way home or path to nowhere?
Dr. Dáithí Downey,
Deputy Director, Head of Policy and Service Delivery,
Dublin Region Homeless Executive.
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Ireland’s ‘housing-led’ homeless policy turn
February 2013 What’s next…
1. At local level? Dublin’s Housing First
Demonstration Project
within the context of
housing-led policy turn
2. At national level? Ireland’s omni-crisis and the
great Irish housing disaster
Challenges, opportunities, prospects
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The 2013 policy turn…
Housing-led approach to effective resolution of
homelessness:
Cost-effectiveness: “better use of scarce resources” to move away from emergency and shelter type accommodation
Recognition of lack of provision and access to “adequate, sustainable and affordable housing” as a “root cause of homelessness”
Housing and Support(s) required to meet “individual needs”
Variety of supports: health; social welfare; employment; justice; education and training.
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The 2013 policy turn…
Commitment to end long-term homelessness by
2016
Regional arrangements for policy implementation
Protocol between central government (DECLG) and local authorities
Delegation of revenue budgets to lead local authority in each region (Section 10, 1988 Housing Act)
Reporting and monitoring
Finance and expenditure (monthly & quarterly)
Service delivery and performance (quarterly)
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What’s next at local level?
Development of service provision in each regional
area
PASS - client management system; national roll-out led by DRHE will be completed in 2103
National Quality Standards for Homeless Services
Standard framework for all service types under housing-led approach
Service standards (including participation & voice mechanisms; governance; funding; performance; monitoring
Project development in 2013 led by DRHE
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Dublin Housing First Demonstration Project
Housing First Europe (Peer City) Established 2011/12;
Successes: Consolidation in 2013: new legal entity;
Board of Directors; Advisory Group; Team Leader; Evaluation; Housing team; Support team (ICM akin to NYC, USA)
Establishment of service structure and teams; tenancies established and maintained
Challenges Widening intake beyond rough sleepers (minor)
Access to accommodation (major):
Attitudes to client group in market and among social housing providers;
Cost and availability (location, size, facilities; congregate and scattered site)
Homeless
Shelter
placement
Transitional
housing
Permanent
housing
Ongoing, flexible
supports
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What’s next for Housing First at national level?
Dublin’s Housing First model requires more formal
integration under revised Irish homeless policy.
Not yet achieved. Housing First remains undefined in policy
Results of Dublin Demonstration Project are nascent but compelling.
Growing realisation that adopting a housing-led approach to the resolution of homelessness in
Ireland will require:
Resolution of the deficits of Irish housing policy
Greater recognition that housing is at the centre of Ireland’s omni-crisis
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Ireland’s omni-crisis
Economic
Banking
Financial
Social
Reputational
Causation? Manifold…key process of urbanisation and the urban growth model (esp. second era of the Celtic Tiger economy 2000 – 2008)
Pro-cyclical fiscal and housing policy;
Light-touch (absent) regulation (housing finance);
Facilitative planning and development;
‘positive business environment’.
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The ‘financialisation’ of Irish housing
Process
Global capital flows switching into Irish urbanisation: asset bubble and speculative development
The global credit cycle and EZ monetary policy
‘Financial deepening’ of Irish homeowners (equity release)
Predatory and fraudulent lending
Financialisation effects…
Negative impact on access to housing for lower-income and excluded households
Changed inter-tenure relationships
The ‘locked in’; the ‘squeezed out’ and the ‘left
behind’
Mortgage debt crisis: transition from forbearance to foreclosure
Worsening housing security
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Capital switching and Irish housing, 1975-2008 Source: Data compiled from DECLG Housing Statistics, various years
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Loans and securities (credit), total maturity, all currencies combined [Millions of Euro] Loans, total maturity, all currencies combined [Millions of Euro]
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(1) Share of Irish pension funds' assets allocated to property, 2000-2007 (Source: Adapted from Christophers (2011); Irish Association of Pension Funds (note shares are for the start of each year)
(2) Total annual capital formation in Irish housing, 1975-2008 €m (Source: Data compiled from CSO and DECLG Housing Statistics Database)
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(1) Trends in Irish housing output by housing tenure, 1970-2008 (2) Trends in regional Irish house price inflation, 1970-2012, €
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(1) Growth in Irish household liabilities, €m, 2003-2012; (2) Household liabilities and leverage ratios (IE and EU average)
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The ‘locked in’ homeowners…
Negative equity
Decline in values of 50 % (2007-12) locked 240,000 households into a negative equity position totalling €25 billion (Irish Central Bank, 2012)
Reduces labour market mobility (debt trap)
Restricts housing market recovery to new entrants or those not in negative equity
Eliminates ‘wealth effect’ of homeownership
Reduces debt-based domestic demand
Mortgage arrears @ March 2013
I in 7 Irish mortgages in arrears of €3.04 billion
12 % of value of balance
outstanding of all Irish
mortgages. Significant &
growing impairment on banks balance sheet
95,554 (12.3%) households in
arrears >90 days on
principal dwelling house (PDH)
29,369 (19.7%) of Buy To Let
(BTL) in arrears >90 days
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The inter-tenure transfer of demand to rental housing
Boom to Bust
Boom: aspirant homeowners transferred their housing need to private rental due to inability to access private housing in preferred location (Downey, 1998, 2008; Drudy and
Punch, 2005)
Bust: distressed homeowners renting out housing in prime rental locations and down-sizing and/ or moving to less preferred locations (or back to their parents!) (Downey,
forthcoming)
Results Greater reliance on private
rental market and deeper segmentation between residential enclaves of corporate and professional components and lower income households
Demand ‘transfer’ process impacts disproportionally to squeeze lower-income & welfare dependent households out of good quality housing in inner urban and suburban locations
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The ‘squeezed out’ low-income renters… Percentage difference between maximum rent subvention rates and rents in Dublin city for selected rental dwelling types, 2005-
2007 Source: Downey, 2008
Income inadequacy and rents
Key issue here is relationship between income inadequacy, market rents and income maintenance (rent supplementation) for low income households 2005: 60,200 households
in receipt of rental subsidy (€369m)
2010: 96,800 households (€516m)
40 percent (!) of Irish private rental sector
Widening gap between rents & income
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Changes in Irish residential property prices and private
rents, 2003-2012 Source: CSO (2012c) RPPI and CPI
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Rent stops declining in 2009
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The ‘left behind’ unmet housing need… Unmet housing need (households in need of housing support,
which cannot be accommodated through the existing stock available to local housing authorities)
2008: 56,249 households
2011: 98,318 households (75 percent increase)
Two thirds (66.8 percent) ‘unable to meet the cost of
accommodation’
Homelessness:
March 2011: 2,348 households (1,089 in Dublin) (DECLG/ Housing
Agency)
April 2011: 3,808 households (2,375 in Dublin) (CSO, Census 2011)
Sept 2011 (revised data): 1,981 households in Dublin (DRHE and
HA
2013 housing needs assessment underway now
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Challenges? Dealing with the increased risk and
uncertainty of financialisation of Irish housing system
The financialisation of home was never designed to enable homeownership: it was first and foremost designed to fuel the economy
This required the expansion of the mortgage market through wider access to
mortgage loans that in turn resulted in higher house prices
However, access to mortgage finance does not equal affordability.
Therefore the result of the expansion of mortgage finance ‘is
not improved access to homeownership but an increase in risk and uncertainty’ (See Aalbers, 2008).
Financialisation effects: multi-dimensional Social; Social-Psychological; Health; Administration; Financial; Political;
Organisational.
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What’s next in 2013?
Next stage in the financialisation process Installation regime of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ across Irish
economy (EU/ECB/IMF troika programme of privatisation and
marketisation)
2013: ‘end of the beginning’ of the Irish housing crisis Forbearance turns to foreclosure ‘accumulation by repossession’
Unmet housing needs: strengthen, deepen, broaden Structural routes into housing exclusion and homelessness increasingly
prevalent
Fiscal crisis of the Irish state and austerity impacts Reductions in expenditure on homeless services in 2013/14 and on critical
public services
‘Crisis management’ continues to dominate homeless service responses and development. Mitigate implementation of the 2013 policy turn?
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What’s required? Revision of housing policy
Irish housing-led approach is under-developed &
insufficient. Needs to be urgently rectified:
Greater housing choice: general needs affordable rental
Access to housing: residual income affordability of housing needs to be resolved
Labour market relationships: creating work and making work pay
Greater coherence with other policy spheres: joined-up especially with Health, Welfare and Justice
Government needs to re-think and act on housing
Restructure and regulate the housing market for a sustainable housing system as a central element of national strategies for economic recovery from 2013
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DR. DÁITHÍ DOWNEY DRHE, DUBLIN, IRELAND
[email protected] WWW.HOMELESSSDUBLIN.IE
Thank you