COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

south dublin county council crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 09, 2013

QUESTION NO. 6

QUESTION: Councillor E. Ó Broin

To ask the Manager to provide a report on the 3,166 housing applicants who did not renew their housing application during this years Housing Needs Assessment including the following information:

- the efforts made by the Council to contact these applicants during the HNA process
- measures taken to ensure that those with restricted literacy  were not disadvantaged during the process
- the number of people who have contacted the Council since the conclusion of the HNA process concerned that they have been  removed from the list
- the number of people who have now been returned to the list 
- what additional measures the Council now intends to take to ensure that no person, through no fault of their own, will lose their place on the housing list following the HNA process?

REPLY:

The Council contacted 10,361 applications in relation to the Housing Needs Assessment 2013 by letter sent 5th April 2013.  On the 14th June 2013 the Council sent 4,750 reminder letters to those who had failed to return the requested form.  In May 2013 Allocations Section also commenced a programme of contacting 'failure to reply' applicants directly by telephone.  Allocations staff attempted to contact 1,130 applicants using all  telephone numbers on file.  It transpired that  916 were unreachable, the remainder 187 contacted had either forgot to reply, changed address or were no longer interested in housing with South Dublin County Council as they had applications with other Local Authorities. A further  862 applicants were checked with  the assistance of the Department of Social welfare .In total 556 of these were re-issued with a form due to change of address, approximately 110 of these were  subsequently returned.   Due to the response rates and the statutory timeframe for completion of the Housing Needs Assessment it was decided not to pursue these option further.  Information regarding the Assessment was placed on the Choice Based Letting website.  The Council's Traveller Accommodation Unit contacted, in person, housing applicant's belonging to the traveller community. 

The Customer Care Counters, Libraries etc. are always available to assist customers who may have literacy issues  with any documentation received from the Council , accross all Departments. On completion of this prolonged and exhaustive process executed within very limited resources a total of  3,674 applications were cancelled on 7th July 2013 for failure to reply to the Housing Needs Assessment.  This represents a 35% of  the overall total and compares favourably with previous Housing Need Assessments.

The Council will reactivate applications who failed to return the initial Housing Needs Assessment form with no loss of time on list, however, a completed form must be submitted by 31/12/2013 with relevant documentation.  Re-activation of files after this date will not be possible.  Please note this Council will process sympathetically any genuine appeals on literacy grounds or indeed other genuine reasons for non return of documents after year end.  To date the Council has reactivated approximately 300 applications.

The only applicants who lose their place on the housing list following the HNA process are those deemed no longer eligible, who are no longer interested in housing with South Dublin County Council or who fail to return their form.  Housing applicants are reminded in all correspondence issued to notify the Council of any change of circumstance with their application e.g. Change of Address. This is a fundemental condition of the Allocations Scheme and applicants are constantly reminded of this requirement. It is their responsibility to notify the local authority in cases of change of address and circumstances.

It must be noted that under legislation issued in 2011 housing applicants can only apply to one Local Authority for housing, the Council regularly issues letters to applicants who wish to apply to an Authority outside of the Dublin area confirming cancellation of their application.