Beautiful PRS, where are you?: reflections on the eviction ban debate
The Week in Housing 31/03/23
The eviction ban debacle is no doubt a turning point in the politics of Irish housing. Never before have tenants’ rights been at the top of the political agenda. Never before has the impact on tenants of losing their homes been fully recognized in the corridors of Leinster House, or indeed in the media. This change has been a long time coming, but it’s worth stepping back to consider how significant it is. The eviction crisis in the rental sector has been going on for a decade, but for most of this time the impact of eviction on tenants has not been recognized.
Over the last couple of weeks it feels the political system has finally woken up. This has a lot to do with homeless services, campaigners and researchers. Rory Hearne, via the Reboot Republic podcast and his other media appearances, has done a huge amount to bring out the human stories behind evictions.
Even Sally Rooney has stepped into the debate, hence the title of this Newsletter (of which more below).
At another point in history, this might have been a hopeful moment. But if the eviction ban issue revealed anything, it is that there are no easy answers to the current challenges. The phrase we kept hearing from Government TDs was that the decision to withdraw the ban was ‘difficult but correct’. Opposition politicians could point to the dire consequences for vulnerable tenants. But Government could also point to the dire consequences of a further collapse in the availability of rental property. It seems that wherever you look, there are dire consequences.
In terms of where we go from here, Government faces what I call a ‘rental trilemma’. There are three fundamental facts about our rental sector which cannot easily coexist. First, there is an overall imbalance between supply and demand in our housing system, and therefore availability is an issue. Second, we are no longer a ‘homeownership society’: according to Eurostat we have the 7th lowest level of homeownership of any EU country. Nationally one in five households are renting privately, and a quarter of Dubliners are. Third, we have weak security of tenure protections, specifically landlords can terminate a tenancy due to sale of property, personal (including family) use and for renovation. This means a tenancy can be terminated at any time, and tenants have no control over their continued access to their home.
Taken together, this means that we will have a volatile private rental sector where being evicted is a common experience, finding an alternative property is a difficult experience, and hence a proportion of those who lose their homes will become homeless.
There is no easy way to respond to this ‘trilemma’.
The Government have, unsurprisingly, framed their withdrawal of the eviction ban around the need to protect supply. The premise here, and of Government policy in general, is that we can ‘supply our way out’ of the trilemma. But this is a lot more complex than it might initially seem.
First, the imbalance between supply and demand is so extreme that it will take a generation to deal with. Estimates of how much new housing we need per annum vary from 45,000 to over 60,000 – but the system has been struggling for years to even reach 30,000. This doesn’t mean supply isn’t crucial. But, even being optimistic, increased supply won’t stop the volatility in the rental sector within the next five years, and probably more.
Second, while landlords are leaving the market, we have very limited data on why. It could be for any number or combination of the following reasons: house prices have peaked; many landlords are older and want to liquidate their property investment for retirement; there has been a huge and constant increase in new regulation, including four iterations of rent control legislation; taxation; banks have largely withdrawn from providing buy-to-let mortgages; there is a Capital Gains Tax exemption for a certain cohort of landlords if they sell now. These are just a few of the possible drivers.
Third, and this is where things get political, tenants increasingly feel they have already sacrificed enough at the alter of supply. Hardly surprising after a decade of record rent increases. Heretofore, the political system has typically ignored tenants’ concerns. This has a lot to do with demographics: according to the most recent data (Census 2016), over 40% of private rental tenants are migrant-headed households. But the eviction ban fiasco shows that tenants’ rights might finally be making their way to the top of the political agenda. This was what shocked me most about the intensity of the political fallout from the withdrawal of the ban. Bear in mind that, by not renewing the ban, the Government is merely returning the Irish PRS to its default state.
Even Sally Rooney wrote an op-ed in the Irish Times denouncing the ‘exploitation’ of tenants (hence the title of this piece). I find it fascinating that the defining literary figure of a generation has set out a political analysis of the defining political issue of a generation. Her argument boils down to the core idea that renting is fundamentally exploitative – the concentration of property ownership is an unequal economic relationship which perpetuates the monthly transfer of income from tenants to landlords, as well the exclusion of tenants from secure homes they can call their own. Diarmaid Ferriter also penned an IT piece highlighting the return of 19th century style anti-landlord sentiment (something I’ve written about myself).
My perception is that this view, the foundation of what I have called the ‘new tenant politics’, is becoming increasingly widespread, especially among younger people and progressives.
This is all part of a wider context – in many countries, the tide is turning in favour of tenants. Scotland, Germany, Netherlands, France and parts of Spain (Catalonia) have all either introduced or strengthened rental regulation over the last five years or so. Tenants Unions are also growing rapidly in many countries. There is an increasingly well-organized push back against landlordism and many of the key ideas that underpin how the mainstream political system thinks about the PRS (see CATU in the Irish context).
A recent piece of research from Catalonia is very interesting here. The research (not available in English I’m afraid) set out to undermine some of the main arguments made by the mainstream Spanish political parties against strengthening tenants’ rights. The Spanish equivalent of our concept of ‘accidental landlords’ is the idea of ‘vulnerable landlords’, i.e. landlords who depend on the income they receive from their single rental property. The function of the term is to frame the debate such that the Government must ‘strike a balance’ (sound familiar?) between landlords and tenants. The research, however, found that the median annual income of landlords in Spain is €40,293, significantly higher than the national average of €27,225, and more than twice the average for tenants.
Meanwhile in England, influential think tank the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s research paper takes direct aim at the PRS, arguing that it is fundamentally an engine of inequality. Another sign of the times is this really well produced video by the Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen campaign in Berlin - it’s a ‘call to arms’ for Berlins tenants.
Many housing commentators of a more wonk-ish disposition point out the fact that we need a huge increase in rental housing to meet demand. From this point of view, the ‘new tenant politics’ is cutting off its nose to spite its face. From one perspective, this argument is essentially true. There is huge demand for rental housing and a decline in the availability of rental housing will predominantly impact the most vulnerable households, driving them into homelessness or preventing them forming households in the first place.
But this more technocratic perspective neglects something very important about housing – it is political. Housing demand does not arise from thin air or simply from demographics; it is also a function of the housing system, which is in turn shaped by the interaction of economic and political forces. Consequently, households do not just ‘demand’ housing, they also form views about the fairness of the housing system, ideas about how it could be fundamentally different, and claim for their rights. So while there may be structural demand for PRS housing, whether or not the PRS is perceived as legitimate or fair, at least in its current form, is another question entirely. And this question of fairness and legitimacy may end up having more impact on how policy develops than assessments of housing demand.
That said, the politics of all this are far from straightforward. Last Sunday’s Business Post included new polling suggesting Fine Gael had enjoyed a light bounce following the withdrawal of the ban, and, interestingly, almost half of Labour Voters support the withdrawal.
Anyway, increasing housing supply is not the obvious answer to our woes it might initially seem to be. Yes, it is a crucial issue and should be the main priority of our long term housing strategy. But over the next few years, the reality is that housing policy and housing politics will be dominated by tough trade-offs and zero sum games, as we have seen with the eviction ban. The challenge for Government will be to balance protecting the (long-term) supply of housing with protecting households from the consequences of inadequate supply in the short to medium term. In this political context, the conflict between landlords and tenants will only get more contentious.
Events & News
Lots of interesting international stuff announced recently. On April 12th this webinar will look at the PRS in postcommunist countries. This looks to be a very interesting webinar looking at race equality in housing (in UK context) on April 27th. The Vienna International Summer School on Social Housing have put out a call for applications - great opportunity for a junket in Vienna!
Back in Ireland, the UCD School of Geography are organising a book launch seminar (3 April, 4pm). The book is one I have been looking forward to for some time - Dan Immergluck’s Red Hot City: Housing, Race and Exclusion in 21st Century Atlanta. I believe you can attend online via this link. The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice are holding their annual lecture on April 25th looking at theological understandings of homelessness. CATU are organising a public meeting to discuss responses to the lifting of the eviction ban, in Third Space Smithfield, 6:30pm on April 4th. I believe there is also a protest at the Spire at 2pm today (March 31st). The Housing Commission’s public consultation is now open. Finally, the All Ireland Tenant Engagement conference will take place on June 13th.
What I’m reading
A nice comparative analysis piece on the PRS in Ireland and England, by Padraic Kenna and Mark Jordan. A widely covered new report out on ‘relevant lands’ from the LDA. New research from the ESRI on neighbourhood effects and mental health. An interesting article by Joseph Kilroy on the geography of new housing supply. And finally a new radio series from BBC looking at solutions to rental affordability.