Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 December 2013
7. Deputy Dessie Ellis asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to deal with the very large increase in homelessness; and the deadline for the proposed delivery of 450 National Asset Management Agency units for dealing with homelessness. [51922/13]
View answer37. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the steps he is taking to address the rise in homelessness here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51925/13]
View answerAs the Minister knows, there has been a huge increase in the number of people who are homeless. There are approximately 5,000 people who are homeless; 1,400 in emergency accommodation in Dublin each night, while there were 139 people sleeping rough in Dublin on 12 November. Recently two people who were sleeping rough died. These were tragic incidents. In the past six months the number of people in emergency accommodation has increased by 45.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 37 together.
Earlier this year my colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for housing and planning, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, published the Government’s homelessness policy statement which outlined the Government's aim to end long-term homelessness by the end of 2016. The statement emphasises a housing-led approach which involves accessing permanent housing as the primary response to all forms of homelessness. The availability and supply of secure, affordable and adequate housing is essential in ensuring sustainable tenancies and ending long-term homelessness.
When the statement was published, a set of indicators which will be used to demonstrate the dynamics of homelessness as it is addressed was also announced. These indicators will give a clearer picture of homelessness in Ireland and, in quantifying its continuing extent, support the bringing forward of realistic and practical solutions. The Minister of State also established an oversight group to review the progress of the approach being advocated in the statement, identifying obstacles or practical solutions that can be taken on board.
Arrangements have been put in place to provide for the delegation of homelessness funding to the lead housing authority in each of the nine regions. The regional approach is considered more appropriate as it helps to bring a more strategic perspective to bear on action to address homelessness, including avoidance of over-concentration of homelessness services in certain centres and promoting appropriate regional availability of services, consistent with need. These arrangements seek to ensure the measures being pursued by housing authorities reflect the housing-led approach advocated in the policy statement. I agree with Deputy Dessie Ellis that this is a very serious matter which has escalated significantly.
With regard to NAMA units, my Department, the housing agency and NAMA continue to work together with housing authorities and approved housing bodies towards identifying suitable NAMA sites and bringing them into social housing use, in addition to dealing with some of the people who are assessed as homeless. To the end of September, 443 units have been completed or contracted under this process.
It is quite clear that the level of homelessness has escalated, for which there are several reasons. Landlords are cutting off the contracts of people in receipt of rent supplement and the people concerned then have to look for another rent supplement, but they cannot find a rental property anywhere. It is a major crisis and they cannot access a place. If one goes online, one can see that there are no places available. If the people concerned do not find a place, they will end up homeless, which is a tragedy. Rents in the private rental market have increased dramatically across the board and landlords are more inclined to push people out in order to secure higher rents, instead of taking rent supplement or people participating in the rental accommodation scheme. This issue needs to be addressed urgently. The Minister mentioned 450 units, but in three years the Government has delivered only 443 under NAMA.
NAMA identified 2,000 houses as suitable, but not all were suitable; therefore, work has to be carried out on them to make them suitable. The figure of 443 certainly represents some progress, but we would like to see more. I agree with the Deputy on that point. At the end of 2012, there were 4,837 people who were regarded as homeless and using emergency accommodation services in Dublin. At the end of September 2013, the equivalent number was 4,012; therefore, there has been some reduction but not enough. The daily average figure of new people presenting as homeless was 5.7 for the first nine months of the year.
The definition of homelessness involves several complex issues. Some people have been offered accommodation, but a small number - I do not want to overstate this - do not want to take it up, for one reason or another. People involved in outreach services in Dublin are working closely with rough sleepers and those who are homeless who do not want to take up emergency or private rented accommodation in order to help them to overcome some of their difficulties.
We have a major crisis in housing. There are approximately 112,000 people across the country on housing waiting lists, and the homeless are obviously included in that. We need to be more imaginative in how we approach this issue. We need to build more social housing. Perhaps the way to do this is to have the local authorities operate to the same criteria as voluntary housing bodies, which can borrow money. Perhaps local authorities should be able to use their stock to borrow the money to build more social housing.
It is no use putting homeless people into properties with rent supplement because many of them need all types of supports and a different type of housing. People find themselves homeless for a variety of different reasons. Unless we provide more social housing overall, we are going to be continuing to fight this battle in terms of homelessness and the housing lists.
That is the reason the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, succeeded in getting €30 million to kick-start the social housing programme with direct construction provision through the local authorities in 2014. She will be making an announcement in regard to these matters in terms of looking for calls for projects from local authorities in the next few weeks.
By the end of 2012, Dublin City Council had moved 879 homeless persons to independent living, and by the end of September 2013, a further 638 individuals had moved on to independent living, so there is a movement of people, although, obviously, it is still a major issue.
There is no doubt there is a crisis, particularly in Dublin. While I listened to the figures given by the Minister, my office is inundated with calls every day from people who are discriminated against because they are on a social welfare payment and landlords will not take them. There is also a major problem with single men trying to access accommodation. Even though the Minister is presenting figures, we are not seeing that movement on the ground, with people getting into accommodation.
While there was €15 million for local authorities, Dublin City Council could take that all on its own and it still would not have enough to deal with the housing crisis in Dublin. With the winter coming, we do not want to see a reaction to people dying on the street; the need is to get in there at the preventative stage. With regard to emergency accommodation, we need a dispersal of those facilities throughout the city.
Does the Minister accept that the refusal of the Government to build social housing has a direct impact on the homeless numbers? Given the scarcity of private rented accommodation in Dublin city in particular at the moment, rents are increasing and the number of units available is going to fall. We are not going to see a serious number of new units coming on the market in the near future because many of them have not even been started and there is not yet an appetite among the developers to build much, so this problem will increase.
With regard to NAMA, the Minister referred to the 4,000 units that were originally ear-marked. This is a body that has been in place for a few years. Does he agree that the lack of transparency in how NAMA works does not help matters and that things might move more swiftly if we could actually see what NAMA is doing?
In response to Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan, in recent years I have never ceased to be amazed at the amount of time spent by some people in emergency accommodation. The definition of emergency accommodation is certainly very open to question. An emergency could normally be expected to be for three or four weeks but it develops into six years on the north side of Dublin in many cases, which is a scandal and a waste of money from the point of view of the client. There is perhaps a vested interest in some cases in actually keeping people in that type of accommodation, which we are trying to address.
In response to Deputy Wallace, we are again going to work through local authorities in terms of direct construction provision. Contrary to what the Deputy might think, there is a lot of interest by builders and developers in regard to these matters. I am delighted we are using local authorities again to go back to the traditional way of building houses for families in local authority areas. There are 212 "voids" in the Dublin City Council area at present and we will be addressing those in 2014, in addition to some of the work Dublin City Council will be doing in terms of direct build. That will help to provide more houses for people.
As the Deputies who asked Questions Nos. 8 to 10, inclusive, are not present, we move on to Question No. 11.
