BELFAST is in the midst of a housing crisis.
Almost 12,000 people are on the waiting list for social homes in the city.
As they wait, many of these people are struggling to find suitable accommodation.
The number of private rentals has grown over the past few decades and now accounts for 17 per cent of all homes in the north - larger than the social housing sector.
And rents are soaring.
The average monthly rent is £684 per month - 6 per cent higher than last year according to figures from property website PropertyPal.
Rents for apartments are around £705 a month - 4.8 per cent higher than last year.
But even a cursory online search shows that many properties in Belfast have much higher rents than average.
Fancy a two-bedroom flat in the south of the city featuring a massive TV on the mantlepiece and a random car tyre in a spare room? That’ll be £825 a month please.
Want to live in a drab grey box close to a railway line in south Belfast? £900 a month plus some unspecified ‘fees’.
One ground floor two-bedroom flat in the east of the city is being advertised for £850 a month, again with those mysterious fees.
Incidentally, letting fees, including viewing, check-out and inventory fees, are banned in the Republic and England but not Northern Ireland.
The assembly’s Private Tenancies Bill is aiming to provide tenants with better protection, including restrictions on rent increases.
But there are wider issues.
Most people under 40 are trapped in a depressing spiral of having to fork out on rising rents while not being able to afford the deposit for a house.
There’s a huge emotional weight to buying a home. I bought my first house in 2019 and still hug the living room walls at night.
I don’t really own it, the bank does, but at least I have a degree of privacy after years of living in badly decorated, dark and damp places owned by other people.
There are good and bad landlords of course. For every one who told me that opening windows and a weekly application of bleach on the walls would get rid of a rampant mould problem, there were others who were quick to send someone out when a cooker broke or a pipe burst.
In recent years, the rise of Airbnb has dramatically changed the rental market. Some landlords can make the same in a week as they previously could in a month.
A two-night stay in a modest one-bedroom flat near Belfast city centre could set you back around £200.
The prevalence of Airbnb has altered the character of once quiet residential streets across the city. Long-term affordable lets are being phased out in favour of short-term stays.
Never mind the 21st century complaint that we no longer know our neighbours, some people don’t have actual neighbours, just a revolving door of visitors who treat their street as a weekend party base.
In areas where there is a high concentration of Airbnb lets, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to rent or buy homes.
The SDLP has called for better regulation and licensing of Airbnbs.
"We have seen what has happened with HMOs (houses of multiple occupancy) in the Holyland, so we need to avoid a repeat where we get beyond the point of no return," councillor Gary McKeown has said.
Tonight, Belfast City Council will debate a Green Party motion calling on the executive to introduce a rent control scheme for the city.
Councillor Mal O'Hara has pointed out that such schemes are common in Europe and the US.
"It's important that we ensure that renters in Northern Ireland are not left behind, and are offered the same rights and protections as renters elsewhere," he said.
They are sensible ideas - much too sensible for an executive which has never really got to grips with particular housing issues in Belfast.
Market forces allowed the Holyland to change from being a close-knit community to a dumping ground for relatively cheap student accommodation.
The proliferation of student housing has turned out to be bad for the community, bad for students and an annual headache for the two main universities.
Endless complaints about anti-social behaviour are unlikely to stop until the area is no longer seen as an option for students only.
Having an affordable home should be a right, not a privilege.
Living costs are rising multiple times faster than wages. We cannot continue to allow renters to be at the mercy of the market.
