Record number homeless as rents soar

The number of people homeless has exceeded 10,000 for the first time as a new report shows a year-on-year rise in rents.

Department of Housing figures for February show 10,264 adults and children without a home, staying in emergency accommodation, up from 9,987 in January.

The number of homeless families increased by 93, from 1,614 to 1,707.

The figures were released as a report from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) shows the national average rent in the last quarter of 2018 was €1,134 per month, an almost 7% increase on one year earlier.

Two more rent pressure zones (RPZs) — Limerick City East and Navan — have been introduced with immediate effect, meaning annual rent rises in these areas are capped at 4%.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said more RPZs will be introduced on the recommendation of the Housing Authority if it deems an area meets the criteria. He also said he will be bringing “further rental reforms to cabinet next week”.

RPZs were introduced in 2016 to try and tackle spiralling rents.

While Mr Murphy hailed a decrease in rents — there was a marginal 0.3% fall nationally between the third and fourth quarter of 2018 — the Simon Communities of Ireland said the RTB figures showed continuing difficulties for people relying on the private rental sector.

Solidarity TD and Oireachtas housing committee member Mick Barry called for the Raise The Roof national housing demonstration on May 18 to be built into “a massive anti-Government protest with the trade unions pulling out all the stops to make it a major success”.

Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the latest homeless figures showed Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Mr Murphy could no longer claim that their housing policy was working.

He said members of the Dáil would have an opportunity to vote for a bill today “that if passed will prevent many families currently at risk of homelessness from losing their homes”.

“We are calling on all TDS, including Fianna Fáil, who blocked the measure in 2016, to support this small but important measure that would help people facing imminent homelessness,” he said.

Paul Sheehan, national spokesperson for the Simon Communities, said continuing inaccessibility in the rental sector was “both pushing people into homelessness and preventing people from leaving homelessness behind”.

Rents are now 15% higher nationally than the peak in 2007, and 25% higher in the Dublin market, according to Rosalind Carroll, director of the RTB.

Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan said the “lack of ambition and urgency by the Government in terms of driving forward an extensive social housing building programme has caused a shocking rise in homelessness”.

Kerry Anthony, CEO of homeless charity Depaul said it was “not enough to identify the reasons [for homelessness], we must also act upon this knowledge”.

Labour housing spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan said RPZ limits were being breached and a rent register “that would allow a new tenant to know what the previous rent was is urgently needed”.

In Dublin, the homelessness crisis is most acute.