Catherine Kenny: We cannot accept long-term homelessness as an inevitable fact of life

Evictions have happened since the dawn of the property market, but the next three months will be critical in defining the future of homelessness, writes Catherine Kenny

A protester during an eviction ban protest at Parnell Place in Cork City. Picture: Cian O'Regan.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve heard much debate around the eviction ban, which is set to lift on March 31 following a counter motion passed by Government to the Bill proposed by Opposition Parties.

We’ve heard calls for extension, recommendations on an extension period, heart-wrenching stories of tenants facing homelessness, horror stories from landlords on the cusp of homelessness themselves; why it must be extended, why it must be removed.

Amid the cacophony of discourse, lies the simple truth: the eviction ban did not work in isolation. It was a short-term stop-gap to facilitate the delivery of housing. And that didn’t happen.

It’s true that during the pandemic, when the first two eviction bans were invoked, homelessness was reduced. However, a simplistic interpretation of this correlation falsely apportions blame for the homelessness crisis on villainous private landlords, while conveniently ignoring the key driver accelerating the spiral we have found ourselves in: lack of supply.

During covid restrictions, this supply was artificially inflated as short-term rentals were redeployed while international tourism remained at a standstill. However, when restrictions were lifted in the summer of 2022, all it took was six months for us to reach the grim milestone of the highest levels of homelessness ever recorded in the country.

Why did this happen? Because during the preceding years, Government failed to mobilise the appropriate measures to increase long-term housing supply. The same is true from October 2022 to now and explains where we are today. An eviction ban is one small component of a much larger suite of interdependent measures, its sole purpose being to buy time to facilitate the delivery of housing supply. 

What happened to that time we bought? We wasted it.

As we wasted time, we also unwittingly maligned ourselves with a group of people on whom our housing market is overly reliant; private landlords, who are now fleeing in their droves. As the discussion has unfolded over the last few weeks, the question has been raised more than once — so what? Why do we need private landlords? Why do we care about what happens to them?

For our housing market to function properly, we need the three legs of the stool: social housing, privately rented, and owner-occupier. The chronic lack of social housing in Ireland needs no introduction; and so, the first leg wobbles. The outsourcing of social housing via the Housing Assistance Payment Scheme increases pressure on the second leg, the private rented market. The consistent under-delivery of new build housing raises prices and prohibitive deposit thresholds, weakening the third leg. Demand for private rentals shoots up, supply remains insufficient, rents rise, regulation increases, landlords leave and the whole stool collapses.

What happens to the properties when private landlords sell? When so-called vulture funds take over these properties, it removes the human relationship between landlord and tenant and replaces it with a corporate one. A distant landlord has no rapport with or empathy for the tenant. A corporate entity can afford to leave one, five, or ten properties in a much larger portfolio vacant until a tenant who can afford its exorbitant price point is found, shrinking the pool of supply even further and pushing more vulnerable people into homelessness.

The fact that homelessness is accepted as a logical conclusion of eviction is a shocking indictment of our society. 

Evictions have happened since the dawn of the property market. In Ireland, the reason that word has accrued so much fear and anxiety is due to housing supply failing to keep up with demand. The natural consequence of eviction should be movement into a new property of similar size, standard, and cost, not into emergency accommodation.

Options

So where do we go from here? The eviction ban will lift on March 31, and as we know from data released by the Residential Tenancies Board, 4,000 people and families are facing Notices to Quit. Our first piece of advice to tenants in this position is to try not to panic. Often in these situations, we find people respond to notices by immediately exiting the property without exploring all options or by waiting until the last week of notice before reaching out. It’s important to remember that you have options, and to contact services like our Tenancy Information & Support Service to advise you on those. Some people may be eligible to appeal their notice with the Residential Tenancies Board, during which time you are entitled to remain in the property. Evictions will also happen on a phased basis from April to June, providing some people with more time.

During that time, it is crucial that Government implements the necessary interventions and prioritises the rapid introduction of viable homelessness prevention measures and housing supply. This can be done to strict timelines firstly by targeting the political football of units stuck in planning and mobilising them to join the market. Secondly, swift measures can be rolled out to re-introduce vacant properties to the national housing stock. Thirdly, Government needs to ensure all available lands to provide housing are utilised.

The next three months will be absolutely critical in defining the future of homelessness and housing in Ireland. How we approach this will shape our cultural attitudes in relation to these issues; do we, as this Government seems to, accept long-term homelessness as an inevitable fact of life? Or do we rightly work to relegate it to a dark age in our nation’s history?

Catherine Kenny is CEO of Dublin Simon