Readers Blog: Minister massaging homeless figures
Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is downplaying homeless figures and continues attempts to demonise homeless people by some state agencies.
A report by the Homeless Inter Agency Group was discussed at cabinet on Thursday suggesting the Government should consider removing families from emergency accommodation if they refuse the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP).
Over the last few months, Mr Murphy’s approach to the housing crisis has been to blame homeless families for being homeless in the first place, and secondly to reclassify hundreds of the same families as not being homeless at all.
I’m looking for detailed explanations on his removal of hundreds of homeless families from local authority lists.
The fiddling of the figures is becoming clearer by the day. Kildare County Council have publicly said that they rejected the diktats of the Minister to recategorise families because being in “transitional accommodation” means you are still homeless.
While Dublin City Council removed 252 families from their homeless list, its assistant chief executive Brendan Kelly admitted in a Morning Ireland interview that the families were still homeless and had just been recategorised.
The minister and his department are clearly interfering with the numbers on the lists.
The Homeless Inter Agency Group floated the idea of removing families from emergency accommodation if they refuse HAP.
It is absolutely understandable why families would reject HAP. The private rented sector isn’t social housing. Most families who become homeless have fallen into it from that sector. They know it isn’t secure, or long term. They are at the mercy of landlords who may increase rents or try to move them out at the end of a lease.
The solution is to build more social and affordable housing. Secondly, when a family goes on HAP they are removed from the housing lists despite maybe having been on it for 10 or 12 years.
For hundreds of thousands of families looking for secure accommodation social housing is their only option. Families who accept HAP should remain on the housing lists.
