Government’s housing strategy: Time for action to tackle crisis

WHEN Environment Minister Alan Kelly announced the Government’s new social housing strategy last November, it was given a broad welcome, that at last something was being done about our homeless crisis and the endless housing lists.

It was, however, also widely seen as an attempt by the Labour Party to bolster support in the run-up to next year’s general election. At the time, Mr Kelly said the Government was committed to spending €3.8 billion to build and refurbish 35,000 social housing units over the next five years.

The ambitious strategy – the first comprehensive housing plan since the mid 1990s – promises to effectively eliminate the housing waiting list of 90,000 by 2020.

Yesterday, Mr Kelly said over €1.5bn will be invested in a combination of building, buying and leasing schemes by local authorities designed to accommodate 25% of those currently on social housing waiting lists.

The various schemes will target the refurbishment of vacant social housing units and local authorities will have the option of both building and acquiring housing.

The average cost of building a social housing unit is €185,000 – meaning in some parts of the country it will remain cheaper and quicker to acquire as opposed to build.

The condition of some local authority homes leaves a lot to be desired and earlier this week that was officially recognised by the European Committee of Social Rights when it deemed admissible a collective complaint taken by 20 communities across the country.

The collective complaint alleges that Irish law, policy and practices on social housing do not comply with European standards. Residents of estates such as Balgaddy and Bluebell in Dublin say they are living with damp, mould and pyrite and the conditions that some local authority tenants are forced to live in is a violation of their human rights and health. €1.5bn should go a long way to fixing that but anyone thinking that this amount will be in addition to that announced last year will be sorely disappointed.

According to the People Before Profit alliance, a recent letter from the minister to one of their councillors, stated that of the 15,800 social housing units promised in 2015, more than 12,000 will be a continuation of renting from private landlords, where tenants will be “deemed to have had their housing needs met” while they remain in private rented accommodation under the new Housing Assistance Payment.

That is hardly a response to the housing crisis and neither is simply repeating decisions about future investment. It is hard to escape the conclusion that yesterday’s announcement is little different to the promises made last November.

Simply re-announcing investment will not cause the housing crisis to go away. As a number of charities have already pointed out, homeless numbers are continuing to rise, with whole families now forced to live on the streets.

Yesterday, Mr Kelly announced that housing was the Government’s number 1 priority. It is time to prove it.

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