IMPACT has welcomed the additional resources allocated to homeless services and social housing investment announced in the budget. The union has campaigned throughout 2014 to protect homeless services budgets, and has called for investment in social housing, for Government intervention in the housing market and for emergency rent controls.

IMPACT’s Boards & Voluntary agencies branch represents workers in homeless services.

Deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said “These additional resources will help those service organisations and local authorities to continue to deliver vital services as the homeless crisis continues to hold so many vulnerable people in its grip. The additional investment into social housing is essential now in order to get more people into housing, and we hope to see the pressure on homeless services eventually reduced as a result.”

IMPACT organiser Joe O’Connor said the union would continue to campaign in partnership with homeless advocacy groups in order to maintain pressure at local and national government level. “There has been an acknowledgement from the political system that this crisis is real and demands immediate action and we welcome that. It is vital that we maintain a strong focus on this issue, as we continue to seek to resolve the long term issues at the root of the homeless crisis” he said.

"If rent control is off the agenda, the rental market’s dysfunction is doomed to continue" - blog by Joe'O Connor