Irish Examiner view: Let’s find the courage to resolve homelessness

Focus Ireland reported that there were 8,200 people homeless on Christmas week. This figure represents an appalling indictment in a country as rich as this. Photo: Eddie O'Hare

It does not require a tremendous imagination to picture what being homeless meant over recent weeks. 

As torrential rain fell for hours on end, as temperatures tumbled into the red zone, huddling in a doorway, lying on cardboard, if you are lucky enough to have found some, as so many shops are closed, cocooned in layer upon layer of clothing, and curled in a cheap, maybe sodden, sleeping bag is very far from the cherish-all-the-children-equally triumph we offer at moments of national celebration. 

Time may even assume a different pace as the distractions we rely on — Netflix say — to absorb empty, stretching-to-the-horizon hours are not available. It may require a new theory of relativity to match an hour on a warm couch, a glass of wine in hand, with an hour cowering in a doorway cold and hungry. 

Life can indeed be unfair and all too often incomprehensible. But then homelessness is hardly ever a choice. It can be a consequence of misfortune, disadvantage, or addiction. 

It can be caused by simpler, more everyday eventualities. The loss of a job, the end of a relationship, or a landlord happy to evict a good tenant so they can be replaced by one paying a higher rent. It can also, and generally is now, be a consequence of a dysfunctional, increasingly loaded housing system. 

Focus Ireland reported that there were 8,200 people homeless on Christmas week. This figure represents an appalling indictment in a country as rich as this. The number of homeless families has grown by 232% since July, 2014. 

Almost a third of people in emergency accommodation are children. Cherished equally indeed.

Those figures are just the tip of a growing iceberg, one that has the capacity to change Ireland, especially our politics, in destabilising ways. One estimate suggests that around 100,000 people are living in a mishmash of arrangements. 

Thousands more are trapped in inappropriate settings they cannot escape. The last census showed our home-ownership rate at 67.6%, lower than the EU average of 69.2%. 

It was 79% in the 1990s, but soaring property values and the presence of international buyers who outbid individuals drives that neocolonialism. And all the while, one hidebound government after another applies one ineffectual Band-Aid after the last. 

The new State 30% equity scheme and the Help-To-Buy initiatives are just the latest knife-at-a-gunfight offerings. How wonderful it would be if they actually delivered. 

But it is not necessary to be a cynic to imagine that they will do little more than enhance developers’ and banks’ bottom line. The definition of repeating the same procedures but expecting a different outcome is what?

Children who are homeless face a 'double trauma' of firstly losing their home and then the impact of being in the homeless system, according to a report by Focus Ireland.

An important piece of research from Camille Loftus & @rikkesiersbaekhttps://t.co/UNjUOy08Lw

— Focus Ireland (@FocusIreland) February 11, 2021

Focus Ireland point to an obvious truth when they say that “the root cause of the homeless crisis... is the broken housing system. Ireland does not have a public housing system to meet the needs of the society.” This betrayal has driven tens of thousands into the arms of landlords. 

Almost one-in-five households now live in a privately rented home but a decade ago that ratio was one-in-10. This creates a vicious cycle, constantly driving rents, and homelessness rates, upwards.

One analysis suggests we need to build around 55,000 housing units every year for a decade, a figure significantly higher than the Government’s 25,000. Whether we are physically or psychologically — or politically — capable of that gear shift is an open question. 

So too are the questions around innovation, sustainability and the core issue, land ownership, usage, and the intensity of development.

While these issues are debated and dodged the crisis deepens and will continue to do so until we, not just the Government, find the empathy, conscience and backbone needed to break this great social logjam, one that will have consequences far beyond the housing market. The irrefutable, shaming evidence can be seen tonight, huddled, cold and neglected in doorways right across this affluent Republic.