HAPhazard (Preview)
When foul morals apply, whistles must be blown.
This is a part-preview of a multi part series based on a long running conversation with a HAP insider who came forward to reveal the vast depths of #HousingTreason enabled by the creation of HAP in 2014 and rolled out nationally in 2017.
It changed the rules of the rental game in Ireland and not in a good way.
Hi R, and thank you for taking the time to sit down to have this conversation and answer some questions.
A lot of people in the rental market have been struggling for years, with serious hardship on the rise daily for many renters. So this information should be of huge interest and deep concern to those people if not all Irish people here, even abroad, especially those who emigrated because of lack of rentals. What you find is a lot of people do not understand HAP, how it functions in the Irish rental market or even that it exists at all.
Would you say this is broadly true?
Yes, definitely.
Why do you think this is?
I think traditionally people in poor areas go on the housing list or maybe don't even know they have to be on the list to avail of it, but foreign nationals are being coached in it right off the plane and there’s NGO’s supporting them and promoting them within the housing system even acting as advocates and making representations for them.
Readers might not know that one of the primary features of HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) is that you can still work and earn a considerable income while still having your rent subsidised.
What is the main deficiency with this arrangement or feature of HAP?
For the established Irish applicant in the community, there is a legacy of information behind you, whereas if you land in from abroad you don’t have that local history, we have no way of checking their background, if they own a property outside Ireland, well you’ve no way of checking that or such financials compared to the Irish applicants (revenue, social welfare, bank etc.) so we have to take their word at face value and the documents they present… often once they find out the qualifying criteria such applicants stay deliberately below those levels, and in a lot of instances the information they provide could be falsified and there is no real facility for fraud investigation.
What is your reaction to the recent Sunday World report that Fine Gael Councillor, Brian Lawlor received HAP payments for an apartment in South Dublin while on an income of €60K
I’m not shocked, there are many HAP tenants possibly earning more money than this and this is unfortunately quite common.
How does this occur?
The local authority is suppose to send out tenants a differential rent review form every 6 months to review the income but this is rarely done… tenants also sign an agreement to notify the council if their income changes either up or down, but that rarely happens… internal application of the the HAP shared services own legislation is inconsistent, it would depend upon how well it’s run within each local authority or council…
…the HAP differential weekly rent is 12 % of net income, and it depends on the quality of the person processing the application to spot inconsistencies in the information given… I’ve had people leave and come back within hours with new payslips just to qualify for HAP.
Did you report such events to your upper managers?
Yes, yes I did but I was told to ignore it.
How did you find applicants knowledge or understanding of the HAP system when they made their applications?
Generally the Irish were less informed than international applicants, more often the younger Irish and older more elderly Irish generations were less familiar, who didn’t know about some of the details… sometimes the international applicants came in to sign papers thinking they were coming in to literally get their free house for life.
What would happen when you explained there was no free House for life?
They’d get quite angry and begin lecturing me on their entitlements and their rights and they would specifically say they came to Ireland for their free money free house.
Did they actually say “free money, free house”?
Yes, many of them did.
How did you deal with these kinds of awkward or even tense situations?
Well you just had to explain it to them… that the housing list was very long, and their were people on it for 10 or 15 years who were more frustrated than those who were just on it say just 6 months…
…I would explain to them that I could understand their frustration, but asked them to imagine if you were born in the local area and were waiting for a social house and then someone comes along and steps in front of you to get housed instead, and you’re still on a list, well how frustrating that is for them.
How did they react to this explanation?
They would sometimes actually say I came here for my “free house”, they didn’t seem to care about the locals.
What would happen then?
They would get approved for HAP and then ask how long they would have to wait for the “free house”, but I could not give them that answer because it was outside my role.
Did you find this to be a stressful working environment?
Yes, very stressful.
Was there any support for you in these circumstances?
No, no support from senior management, it was toxic and you were targeted if you raised concerns.
This information is being released by Irish people so that all Irish people can know the levels of #HousingTreason they have faced, often without realising the sources of their struggle until now.