Coalition ‘failing to honour promises on housing’

THE Government has been accused of “watering down” promises on mixed housing as new research shows that the risk of poverty is more than five times greater for local authority tenants than for people living in private dwellings.

Research published yesterday by the Combat Poverty Agency also found that the position of local authority tenants is worsening at a time of continuing economic growth. It also found another high-risk category is tenants in private rented housing who have twice the average poverty rate.

Combat Poverty director Helen Johnston described the Government’s failure to date to reserve 20% of new developments for social and affordable housing as “very disappointing”.

The agency’s head of policy and research, Jim Walsh, said building more houses for poor people was only part of the solution.

“In building social housing we must also improve their circumstances,” he said. “Integrated housing is crucial in bridging the social divides and I think we are still struggling with that matter.”

Mr Walsh said the research showed that, where there was such a strong social divide in our housing, other factors could begin to reinforce deprivation.

“This makes the problem even harder to crack,” he said. “There is a leadership challenge to foster more integration because it is a form of social apartheid.”The report, Mapping Poverty: National Regional and County Patterns, also revealed rural areas are at greater risk of poverty and found highest levels of deprivation were in the Border counties and the West.

Donegal had the highest rate of poverty, at almost twice the national average. This was based on a measure taken on a series of criteria including incomes, housing, local environment, the ability to pay bills and afford various household items.

Ms Johnston said Border and western areas included counties with the highest percentages of elderly residents, the lowest levels of educational attainment, the highest incidence of small farming activity and high levels of economic dependency. “The peace programme also operates in the border regions and has made a difference at a local level, but at the macro level more investment and resources are required,” she said.

While targets set by the Government to combat poverty were robust, the policies to achieve them needed to be strengthened.

It was also important to tackle deprivation on a local level with integration of services and outreach work.

“We’re talking particularly of local authority estates where we need to look at estate management, community development and community participation to support communities, to improve neighbourhoods and lift people out of poverty.”