The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) is a major pillar of the Social Housing Strategy 2020. The HAP scheme removes a barrier to employment, by allowing recipients to remain in the scheme if they gain full-time employment, it improves regulation of the rented accommodation being supported and it provides certainty for landlords as regards their rental income. To be eligible for HAP, a person must first apply for and be approved for social housing support by their local authority. The first phase of the statutory pilot for the HAP scheme commenced in September 2014 and has been introduced incrementally to 19 local authority areas with over 8,3 00 households currently being supported under the scheme.
Under HAP, a key principle of the scheme is that eligible households source their own accommodation in the private rented sector, which best suits their needs in their area of choice. However, HAP recipients may access other forms of social housing supports , which is sourced by the local authority, by applying to go on the local authority transfer list.
In December 2014, HAP was extended on a pilot basis to homeless households in the Dublin Region. To qualify for HAP under the homeless pilot scheme, a household must be accepted as homeless within the meaning of section 2 of the Housing Act 1988 by one of the four Dublin local authorities. The Homeless HAP Pilot, which is operated by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities, supports homeless households in the Dublin region to find a tenancy and in many cases liaises with landlords and sources accommodation for eligible households.
