Many will recall seeing a housing ad that goes something like this:
“About this property- shed in Sandymount. We are a family of four looking for a student for the next academic term. No running water. Dog kennel as bed. Price is an arm and a leg. Monthly fee and deposit the same. Email enquiries only!”
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter,” Samuel Beckett stated in 1983. “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Existing in a housing crisis means having to fail againand then fail better. Existing in Dublin, the capital of the land of saints and scholars, means getting accustomed to failing better. There are a myriad of hurdles that renters must overcome. Having to encounter such a difficulty can be seen as a positive, as it encourages strength and endurance. Similar to the proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” However, I argue that those who think that buoyant notion applies to the crisis have never dipped their toes in the water. Let alone fished. Crisis is defined after all by “a time of intense difficulty or danger.”
As time passes, both older and younger generations feel the tangibility of housing slip through our fingers. Housing being a basic human right doesn’t alter the situation – it only causes antagonism towards the government (rightfully so!). Despite the outward antagonism towards the government, there are particles of antagonism being inhaled by the self. Being deprived of a place to live and desperate for this need to be met leads to people lowering their standards. People tend to measure themselves in external objects – clothes, shoes and bags. Stashing away self-worth in the hopes of having somewhere to stay is akin to dating someone with whom you bear no compatibility for the sake of having a relationship. The places you apply to say something about you. Just like dating, there are hopes of it being a long-term investment. People from higher-class backgrounds will apply to places they can afford, and people from working-class backgrounds will apply to places they can afford, ad infinitum. This is simply rational. However, as time goes on, desperation creeps in and rationality leaves the conversation. People tend to start applying to anything that looks promising. Then, it becomes a matter of taking anything at all. As the saying goes, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset!” The gross gain of applying to housing in a housing crisis is, needless to say, housing. However, the deduction of this gain is… dignity. Writing an endless essay about yourself that makes Tolstoy’s War and Peace look like an easy daytime read to a landlord who says “tell me about yourself” is harrowing. Even more so, when it is left in the unread section of their emails.
Applying for accommodation is a batch production of effort in which the end result is often failure. At times, these failures are of no fault of the candidate but due to the discrimination of the landlord. Racial minorities more often than not have a harder time in the private rental market, as some areas in Dublin are deemed more racist than others. Having to avoid certain places when applying due to choice and not out of necessity is a privilege. One that minorities can’t afford. Having to search up racial attacks in areas is a prerequisite for minorities renting. Minorities know that carrying an ethnic name when applying is an added difficulty. I find myself weary that bearing a non-Irish name when applying puts me last in the housing race. My existence as a person of colour becomes a factor like rent or distance to college. Nigerian Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, writes a poem with respect to this situation. His “Telephone Conversation” depicts a phone call between a black man seeking accommodation and an English lady, his potential landlady. The lady is welcoming until she learns that he is African. She even goes as far as to ask him how “light” or “dark” he is. The poem was written in 1963. Now, more than 60 years later, people face the same situation. The only contrast between that past and my present is subtlety.
In the microcosm of Dublin, landlords who profit from people wanting a bed are parallel to the concept of “the banality of evil”, Hannah Arendt’s idea is that evil doesn’t have the devilish appearance we associate it with. Instead, evil is conserved and made pervasive when immoral ideologies become normal by people who fail to think about things from others’ perspectives. Landlords become complicit in the conservation of evil when they fail to think about others.
For now, the point is merely stated; its justification will follow shortly. I’ve had a state of affairs where landlords had an affair with greed. Two weeks before college, I got an email from my landlord detailing that the rent would increase come the following academic year, from €600 per month to €900. A shocking 50 per cent increase. The preamble of the email detailed that they had been contemplating it since May. May, June, July, August. Four months considering my fate in some way, but failing to include that/me in this decision with ample notice. I was given two weeks to make a decision. Either continue to rent, which I couldn’t afford, or spend the entire year commuting from Kildare. Either/or bears no relevance. The decision was made before the conception of the email. The inverse Immaculate Conception of a young woman left to be conceived in the face of offence.
When there are trials, there are juries of justice seeking to put an end to the tribulations. Dubliners as plaintiffs are waiting for the verdict to change. Hope is waning, as our money in landlords’ and the government’s pockets is waxing. We seek redress. We seek retribution. We seek change.
