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.
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.