Generation of children risk growing up in modern tenements

With up to 500,000 households in serious housing distress in the State it cannot be any clearer that the crisis has become an emergency, writes Rory Hearne 

DECLARING the housing crisis a national emergency would allow the Government to shift the debate and framework around next week’s budget to one that prioritises dealing with this growing social catastrophe.

At the most acute end of the housing crisis are 607 families and 1,275 children living in emergency accommodation in Dublin. But if the number of families becoming homeless continues to grow as fast as it has done in the last two years — there will be at least 3,000 families and 6,000 children in emergency accommodation by 2017.