The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has condemned the latest rise in monthly homeless numbers as confirmation that the government is continuing to fail to address the housing emergency.
The figures for the month of January show 17,112 amount of people suffering homelessness including 5,319 children.
Responding to these statistics Congress Campaigns Officer for the Raise the Roof Campaign Paul Gavan described the latest figures as capping off a disastrous week for the state of housing in the Irish Republic.
“The week began with a huge drop in mortgage approvals for people moving homes - down 23.3 % on the same month (January) last year. Then we received confirmation of a collapse in funding of the Tenant in Situ scheme. This was followed by the state’s largest landlord declaring that it’s rental income could surge by 25% as a result of the governments new rules governing rents. Now we have a further increase in the numbers of homeless, with the number of children having increased by one third over the last year alone. Government polices are turning the housing emergency into a housing disaster.”
“Behind every statistic is a family pushed to breaking point. Yet still the Government continues to double down on the same policy platform of ever greater subsidies for developers coupled with letting the market rip for landlords. These are the policies that have locked out an entire generation from renting never mind buying a home of their own”
“The impact on essential services across our hospitals, schools and other services continues to grow, with trade union members telling us that they cannot afford to live near their place of work, especially in our cities.”
“Meanwhile the Residential Tenancies Board is likely to record 20,000 Notices of Termination in 2025. The last time we saw evictions on this scale was during the famine. At the heart of this failure is a government ideology that still views housing as a commodity, rather than as a public good.”
Mr Gavan concluded “There are solutions to the housing crisis. What is lacking is the political will to deliver them. We need a massive expansion of public and cost-rental housing, delivered at scale by the State. We need emergency protections for renters including an immediate ban on all no fault evictions. We need a rapid expansion of the Tenant in Situ scheme to ensure that no more tenants loses their homes. Crucially we need a new public housing agency with the powers and funding to build, acquire, and guarantee housing security for all".
