The Department of Housing has recently changed the way it will assess household income to ensure a more even method of rent calculation for all public-housing tenants.
Two changes are being introduced. Family Tax Benefit payments will be assessed as household income when calculating rent and market rents will now to be set at a level closer to what people in the private rental market are paying.
Many public-housing tenants recently received a letter about their rent increasing in September 2014 . If you have more questions, these fact sheets may help answer them.
If you received a letter about a change in rent based on your Family Tax Benefit assessment, read more
here.
If you received a letter about a change in rent based on an increase in market rent, read more
here.
Including all Family Tax Benefit payments in the income assessment and reviewing market rent values is a step towards ensuring all households living in public housing homes have their rent calculated the same way and that rents reflect people’s capacity to pay.
Even with the increase in public-housing rent, no tenant will pay more than 25% of their income in rent and families will still only pay an estimated 22% of their gross household income in rent. The increase in revenue will allow the Government to continue to provide a rental subsidy to public-housing tenants, while also maintaining and building more public housing.