Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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100. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if, with regard to the housing assistance payment for homeless pilot in the four Dublin local authorities, he will put in place the resources within each local authority to assist homeless persons and families and those in immediate risk of homelessness to find a housing assistance payment tenancy instead of the current practice of leaving it entirely up to the vulnerable housing applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8558/16]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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101. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if, with regard to the housing assistance payment for homeless pilot in the four Dublin local authorities, he will provide the resources necessary to establish a housing assistance payment landlord recruitment team considering the very low take-up of housing assistance payment in Fingal and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in particular; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8559/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 100 and 101 together. 100 and 101 together.

My Department does not fund any homeless service directly but provides funding to housing authorities towards operational costs under Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. My Department’s role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level; statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of services for homeless persons rests with individual housing authorities.

The Homelessness Pilot of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme has been operational since February 2015 across the four housing authorities in the Dublin Region, including Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, and is being implemented through the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. The focus of the Pilot is to transition qualified households from emergency accommodation into private rented tenancies. While eligible households may source accommodation for themselves with support of the pilot scheme, a dedicated placement team, the Dublin Place-Finder Service, is also in place which engages directly with property-owners and supports qualified households to find suitable tenancies and to ensure that any additional supports that may be needed are put in place. A publicity campaign is in place on an ongoing basis in order to raise the profile of the scheme and to attract landlords to the initiative.

While securing accommodation under the HAP scheme can be challenging in areas where there is a shortage of supply, the numbers of households securing accommodation under HAP continues to rise. Levels of support available under the pilot scheme for Homeless Households were increased following Budget 2016 to 50% above the current Rent Supplement levels. This increased level of support has improved the capacity of the Pilot which has been securing, on average, more than 20 tenancies a month since the enhancement, with more than 200 households currently supported by the scheme.

I am satisfied with the increased number of households being accommodated with the support of the homeless HAP pilot scheme, particularly given the current constrained supply in the private rented market in the Dublin region. I and my Department continue to monitor the performance of the scheme.