IMPACT has demanded urgent Government intervention to stem increases in private rents. Speaking at a public meeting in Dublin last Saturday (20th September), IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said rapid and substantial rent increases were making housing unaffordable and, coupled with insecure private tenancy arrangements, were feeding a Dublin housing and homelessness crisis.
Kevin was speaking at a public meeting, organised by IMPACT, which brought together over 100 housing and homelessness practitioners, policy-makers and experts. “A Roof is a Right: Practical actions to tackle Dublin’s homelessness crisis” heard speakers from the Peter McVerry Trust, Threshold, Dublin Simon Community and Focus Ireland call for urgent government action to deal with the capital’s growing homelessness crisis.
Father McVerry (pictured) warned that Dublin’s homelessness crisis was about to get “much, much worse” because of a ticking “mortgage arrears time bomb” especially in the buy-to-let sector. “Some 31,500 buy-to-let residential properties are in mortgage arrears of more than 90 days, and 35,000 principal home properties are in mortgage arrears of more than two years. As property values increase, the enthusiasm of the financial institutions to repossess residential properties and secure a greater proportion of their unmet loans will increase. Each house that is repossessed is a person or family potentially facing homelessness, usually for the first time,” he warned.
IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody said leaving rents to the market was driving people into homelessness. He said that the Government could control rents rather than leaving them to the markets, and while the economy may be finally beginning to recover, society is still extremely fragile and an unfettered market approach never worked. “A couple of years ago the Government decided to put a temporary restriction on the price of beer. It shouldn’t be beyond their wit to do the same with rent for a period” he said.
Shay also criticised “the rush by local authorities to cut the property tax on day one on year one without any regard to the services”. He said it was “frankly something that would be incredible to local authority councillors in Europe, and particularly if they are people of the centre or the left.”
Social housing
IMPACT organiser Joe O’Connor, in his blog for the IMPACT website, highlighted the failure to build and provide adequate social housing.
“Despite, or perhaps because of, the property boom that left a devastating legacy on Irish society, social housing supply is at an all time low, while demand is at an all time high. No sustainable solution to this crisis can be achieved without substantial investment in social housing, and that must remain a priority in the longer term” he said.
He said that IMPACT members within the homeless services sector have experienced first-hand the massive increase in demand for their services. “They witness the personal trauma caused by homelessness every day.”
Speaking after the event, Joe said that the high level of engagement and the positive, solutions-based approach at the meeting was appropriate to the level of urgency the crisis demands.
“I hope it acts as the basis for collaboration across the sector to tackle this issue through a unified campaign, and an immediate policy response in the form of practical actions led by Government intervention. The introduction of rental certainty through emergency rent controls would curb the market excesses which have allowed this problem to exacerbate. We will shortly be making a submission to Government outlining the key solutions discussed at the meeting” he said.
Coordinated response
Tánaiste Joan Burton addressed the meeting, and said that the Government is seeking to ensure a coordinated response to the crisis of homelessness. She told the meeting that the aim is to move people from emergency shelter provision to sustainable homes, and that innovative funding and construction solutions are needed to realise that aim. She said that any interventions needed to guard against driving private rent increases.
The Tánaiste said that the Government's housing strategy will be published in October at the same time as Budget 2015 and that the strategy would include a drive to add new social housing stock, reactivate old social housing stock and continue to build social housing capacity.
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