COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, September 26, 2016

QUESTION NO.4

QUESTION: Councillor M. Johansson

To ask the Chief Executive how many are currently waiting for an appointment to go on the housing list, to outline how long is the average wait for the initial appointment, and if there are any plans to take action to reduce this?

REPLY:

Currently there are approximately 393 applicants awaiting housing assessment.  The average wait is 16 weeks. The Council is unable to reduce this waiting period at the moment, this is due to the current processing of the Social Housing Needs Assessment and staff availability in the Allocations Section.  It is expected that the waiting time will improve once the HNA is completed. It should be noted that approximately 20% of applicants fail to attend appointment with no forewarning thereby there is not sufficient time to re-schedule others.  Of those who do attend approximately 20% of those do not bring all necessary documentation and assessment cannot be completed, Allocations Section endeavour to facilitate these applicants to ‘call back’ with the necessary documents, in so far as possible.

An increase in requests for housing assessments has been noted since the introduction of Housing Assessment Payment (HAP) by this Council.