Couples on minimum wage deemed too well off for Donegal’s social housing list

Young Donegal couples are at a grave risk of homelessness due to high rents and unattainable house prices, yet many are deemed too well off for social housing.

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This issue was highlighted at the recent meeting of Donegal County Council in a motion put down by Cllr Jimmy Brogan (Ind).

The motion states: “I ask Donegal County Council to contact the new government and Minister for Housing to demand that they raise the means allowance substantially for applicants for social housing.”

Cllr Brogan outlined the bleak outlook for young couples trying to set up home in Donegal. 

“The means test for a single person is €30,000,” he said. “That jumps ‘massively’ if you’re a couple to €31,500. That’s €1,500, which if you are on a minimum wage, is about three weeks pay. 

“It means all working young couples are barred from getting on the council housing list. 

If you are single and earning under €30,000 but if you are a couple both working you haven’t a hope in hell of getting on it and that is wrong. It is pushing a lot of young couples to the brink and it needs to be changed.”

Social housing is intended to be a lifeline for those who cannot afford housing on the private market. But in the current economic climate, many couples and families are falling between the cracks. This is forcing them into at best, emigration, at worst, homelessness.

“The current means is too low,” said Cllr Brogan. “It is blocking people from getting on the housing list and availing of housing supports.

“They can’t afford the rents they are being charged and they can’t get a mortgage, which is leading to the risk of homelessness.

“There is a massive shortage of council housing anyway, after years of bad decisions by a number of governments where council housing wasn’t built. But I am glad to say, there are green shoots emerging, as the government always likes to say, and there are council houses starting to be built which is always very welcome. 

“Not near enough, there could be ten times more being built, but anyway, we just have to work with what we have. 

“But the costs of rents and the costs of buying a house are gone completely out of control, and it is putting a lot of people in a position where they can’t afford to rent a house and they definitely can’t afford to buy one.This is pushing people into homelessness as we all know. 

The cost of living increases are getting higher and higher every day, rents are getting higher and higher, and people just can’t afford it. 

“I know of a number of young couples who emigrated over the last number of months. They just see no future for themselves here. These are people with reasonably good jobs. 

“But there are also people on the lower scale, just above the minimum wage.”

The councillor said that those in the rental market were stuck in a trap whereby they were struggling financially, and could not afford to save for a mortgage.

His motion calls on the government to raise the means threshold for social housing to take a realistic  account of the current financial situation. 

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