Homelessness Strategy: More empty promises

26/08/08

A society may be judged by the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens; and there are few more vulnerable than those who are homeless or are at risk of homelessness.

In late 2007, the Simon Community reported that, in the previous 18 months, a staggering 51 homeless individuals had died in Dublin and Belfast, with 45 of those deaths occurring in the capital city.

Housing and homeless agencies in the Twenty-Six Counties estimate that there are over 5,000 people homeless in the state, with thousands more at risk of homelessness.

Aside from their common indicator of deprivation, this is a varied group. Many suffer from mental health problems. Others have experienced the trauma of domestic violence. Young people have been abandoned upon leaving state care, rendering them immediately homeless. Those leaving institutions such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons, or with severe addiction problems, are also at risk.

In a further indictment of government priorities, thousands of working class people have been priced out of the market as house prices spiralled out of control in recent years. The lack of affordable housing has added considerably to waiting lists. There are currently 44,000 households on local authority housing waiting lists in the Twenty-Six Counties, while 36,000 children are in families awaiting the allocation of social housing.

Last week, the Dublin government launched its new five-year strategy to tackle adult homelessness, but without an implementation plan or funding allocation. Entitled The Way Home, it has three core objectives; “eliminating long-term occupation of emergency homeless facilities; eliminating the need to sleep rough; and preventing the occurrence of homelessness as far as possible”.

In addition, the strategy has six aims – to prevent homelessness, eliminate the need to sleep rough, eliminate long-term homelessness, meet long-term housing needs, ensure effective services for homeless people, and better co-ordinate funding arrangements. The overall ‘vision’ of the strategy is to eliminate long-term homelessness by 2010.

All of which is very laudable indeed. There are significant shortcomings however. Crucially, there is no guaranteed funding to actually implement the strategy, while the implementation plan itself will not be published until next December at the earliest.

Current government cutbacks have already severely impacted on homeless services, particularly in relation to emergency accommodation. The Simon Community in Cork recently reported that they have turned away 500 people from homeless shelters so far this year.

Without either a funding or implementation plan, the strategy is little more than an attempt to provide cover for the government’s failure to address a housing crisis that saw houses prices spiral out of control, and a simultaneous reduction in the provision of social housing.

The Twenty-Six County minister for the environment and local government, the Green Party’s John Gormley, has responsibility for the government’s housing policy. Prior to entering government with Fianna Fáil, his party gave the following commitment in relation to housing:

“The Green Party sees housing as a birthright of Irish citizens, and will enshrine that principle in law. We believe that a secure, warm and conveniently located dwelling is the minimum requirement for human happiness and that this should be available at a price affordable by everybody.”

Gormley’s track record to date has been abysmal. He has already abandoned working class communities in O’Devaney Gardens, St Teresa’s Gardens and other parts of Dublin, where the community regeneration plans have collapsed and no alternative to the ‘Public Private Partnership’ (PPP) project has been presented. The government has refused to intervene and fund the regeneration programme.

Failure to provide the required funding to tackle homelessness suggests that the Green Party are quickly learning the art of duplicity from their political masters in Fianna Fáil.

The current situation regarding housing needs to be considered in light of the current economic circumstances. As unemployment rises, even greater numbers will be squeezed out of the private housing market, creating greater demand for social housing. This point has been missed in much of the commentary on the government’s homelessness strategy.

The collapse of the disastrous PPP scheme aimed at regenerating parts of Dublin has highlighted a complete lack of commitment to provide housing for those most vulnerable to an economic downturn.

The current Twenty-Six County Development Plan (NDP 2007-2013), under the Social Housing Provision and Renewal Sub-Programme, aims to deliver a greater quantity of social housing options, while simultaneously improving the overall quality of this tenure.

The Plan has committed to providing 27,000 new homes to people in need of social housing between 2007 and 2009, with an overall target of providing 60,000 new social housing units by 2013. In addition, it has committed to delivering 17,000 affordable homes, under the Affordable Housing and Targeted Private Housing Supports Sub-Programme, over the period 2007-2009, with 40,000 affordable homes promised by the end of the period of the Plan. Thus, in the next two years the Dublin government has committed to providing 44,000 social and affordable houses.

The recent record of local authorities in providing social and affordable housing has been negligible and does not instil confidence that these targets will be met.

From 1994 to 2005, the gross gain in the local authority stock was 43,253 – that is an average of 3,932 units each year. However, this gain was negated by the sale, at significant discounts, of 17,809 local authority houses to sitting tenants.

As a result, the actual net gain in housing stock in the Twenty-Six Counties was just 25,444, or an average of 2,313 each year, since 1994.

Indeed, the NDP allows for affordable housing to be provided for under PPP schemes. Experience has shown that housing developments provided under this system actually reduce the social housing stock, as they make way for private dwellings to be sold at a profit by developers who have been effectively gifted public land. Not surprisingly, Focus Ireland estimate that, by the end of 2009, the government will be as much as 40 per cent or 25,000 units below the target set under the NDP.

On this basis, and coupled with the lack of a funding or implementation plan for the new homelessness strategy, it is apparent that the ‘vision’ of ending homelessness in two years is merely empty rhetoric.

Given the current rise in unemployment, there will be an even greater need for social housing. Failure to meet already agreed targets under the NDP will add to housing waiting lists and the overall risk of homelessness.

Over the last number of months, thousands of construction workers have lost their jobs. Under welfare to work schemes, many of these people will be forced to take up ‘re-training’ programmes or employment wholly unsuited to their skills.

Simultaneously, the demand for social housing is set to increase substantially, as unemployment levels rise and the government fails to meet existing need.

éirígí considers housing as a right, not a privilege or a commodity. It calls on the Dublin government to embark on a social house building programme that meets the needs of those on housing waiting lists and provides badly needed employment to those in the construction sector.