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No place like home: Dublin boom fuels housing spiral
DUBLIN, Dec 23, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Sharing a studio flat in Dublin with two
other people, Greek security guard Aris complains about the housing crisis
that forces him to live in cramped conditions.
“It’s quite rough,” said Aris, who splits the 850 euros ($970) a month
rent for the 30-square-metre flat.
With scant storage space, personal belongings are relegated to the ground.
A kitchen hob is within arm’s reach of one mattress, while the other two are
pushed together.
“It’s not humane conditions to live in Dublin,” said 42-year-old, who
moved to Ireland three years ago.
Rocketing prices have impoverished renters and pushed families into
homelessness, leading to weekly protests in the streets of Dublin by
affordable housing campaigners.
Aris’s situation is not rare in the capital, which is currently in the
midst of a “perfect storm” that is driving the average rent to between 1,600
euros and 2,000 euros.
Increased immigration, depleted stocks of social housing, an aversion to
building tall structures and simple greed following a hardscrabble recession
are all factors.
Dublin’s increasing role as a tech hub is also bringing high-earners to
the city, whilst Airbnb is capitalising on the popularity of the city as a
weekend-break destination — to the detriment of people looking for long-term
rentals.
At one point this year, the property site Daft.ie said there were just
1,258 properties available for long-term rent in Dublin, while Airbnb offered
1,419 short-term lets.
– ‘People are desperate’ –
The irony is that Ireland witnesses an unprecedented property boom in the
run-up to the 2008 financial crisis — a period known as the Celtic Tiger
years.
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Construction of new properties ground to a halt after the crash, setting
the scene for the current squeeze on housing stock as the Irish population
grows rapidly due to a high birth rate and significant immigration rates.
The results are clear in long-term rental advertisements: Rooms with
vanishingly little floorspace are advertised for 1,000 euros and ranks of
bunk beds in single rooms.
“There’s such a pent-up demand for housing across all the tenures, that
people are desperate,” said John-Mark McCafferty, head of housing charity
Threshold.
“There’s a whole suite of different situations, whether it’s people going
into some level of poverty or people living in acutely overcrowded
situations, and it’s affecting people’s quality of life.”
At the bottom of the property ladder, people are falling off the lowest
rung — unable to keep up with rents that have risen 10 percent on average in
the last year alone.
The most recent housing ministry figures show 1,295 families were in need
of state-funded emergency accommodation during a single week in October.
In August, images of a young mother staying overnight with six of her
children in a police station — bedded down on metal waiting room chairs for
want of emergency accommodation — shocked the nation.
One month later balaclava-clad policemen and private security evicted
protesters from a grandiose but empty house in central Dublin. Many saw the
move as heavy-handed.
Since then, major housing marches of thousands have been regular fixtures,
led by activist group Take Back the City.
“Housing is a human right!” and “Homes for need not for greed!” have been
staple chants in demonstrations.
– ‘They’re not doing enough’ –
Activists also occupied the offices of Airbnb — which has installed its
European headquarters in the city.
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“Airbnb appears to have rapidly colonised vast amounts of our city,
locking people out of homes,” the campaign group said in a statement.
In November, they stormed the offices of the Residential Tenancies Board,
a government body responsible for resolving rent disputes.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s government has tabled limits on letting with
Airbnb, as well as stiff penalties of 30,000 euros ($34,000) for landlords
who breach rent inflation restrictions.
The government is also aiming to encourage the building of new homes.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Dublin development in November,
Varadkar was ambushed by a local resident complaining about the slow pace of
construction of new housing.
“It took ten years to just build these two!” said 58-year-old Catherine
Cooke.
“How long is it going to take to build them over there?”, she added —
gesturing to nearby land.
Varadkar quickly headed off for his next engagement in a sleek motorcade.
As the cars left, Cooke muttered: “They’re not doing enough”.
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