Impact of Covid-19 on Tenants in the Private Rental Sector
Dates: Mar. to Aug. 2021
Principal Investigator: Michael Byrne (with research assistance from Juliana Sassi)
Background
The rapid growth of the private rental sector over the last ten years has created a myriad of new challenges for the Irish housing system, including affordability, insecurity and a homeless crisis. International evidence shows us that these changes represent a deepening of housing inequality; a growing divide between ‘housing haves’ and ‘housing have nots’. This divide was sharply exposed by the Covid-19 crisis and associated public health measures. Home became not only the place we sheltered in to protect ourselves from the Covid-19 virus, but also the place in which most of our activities took place.
As such, understanding the impact of the pandemic on private renters is crucial. Research into this experience also sheds light on some of the limitations of private rental housing as it currently exists in Ireland. The project also examined the impact of emergency protection measures introduced during the pandemic, including the ban on evictions and rent freeze.
Methodology
This project uses in-depth qualitative interviews with tenants in the private rental sector to examine how tenants were effected by the pandemic. It focused on analysing the interaction between housing inequality and other forms of social inequality, specifically employment and income, gender and family composition, and migration status. 35 interviews were carried out remotely in the Spring of 2021.
Findings
- The research finds that many tenants did not enjoy access to a secure home during the Covid-19 pandemic. The main reasons for this are the absence of secure occupancy, poor quality dwellings, and the inability to control or personalise dwellings.
- For some tenants, the pandemic experience, and the consequent increase in the amount of time spent at home, exacerbated these challenges.
- The research also finds that the blanket eviction ban had a limited impact on tenants’ perceptions of security. This is due to three factors:
- the temporary nature of the ban;
- the belief among some tenants that landlords may not comply with legislation; and,
- the way in which the relationship between landlord and tenant impacts tenants’ experiences.
- The research draws attention to the complex ways in which ‘home’ is undermined for tenants in the PRS and the particular importance of this during the COVID-19 pandemic. This raises important questions about tenure inequality; i.e. the ways in which access to and experience of home is particularly difficult for PRS tenants. It also emphasises the urgency of addressing this issue in the post-pandemic context.