Trying to find a home a full-time job, says researcher who has to leave rented house

A postdoctoral researcher who lives in the suburbs of Galway City has an alert set on Daft for all available properties to rent but hasn’t been able to find a place within her budget.

Dr Faiza Alssaedi, who moved from Sirte, Libya to Ireland 10 years ago with her two children, aged two and seven months at the time, will have to leave her rented home in Knocknacarra on May 1st.

She said she cannot afford anywhere else to stay in Galway, even as a Hap recipient, and has been on the social housing list for five years.

Dr Alssaedi, who is currently fasting as part of Ramadan, said she has “no support” in this country.

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“I do not have a father or mother or sister to go to and I don’t have money to rent a place,” she said.

“I don’t have money to move from place to place, you need a lot of money and I do not have it.”

She said her children speak better Irish than Arabic, and do not want to leave their friends in the estate.

When we are using hotels for families and then we are using apartments for tourists, it has flipped it, it just does not make sense

—  Cllr Niall McNelis

“It’s a full-time job. I messaged in Galway, I have been looking everywhere, Cork, Limerick, Dublin – it is difficult – Sligo, Donegal, everywhere. I set up the alarm on Daft to check everywhere, emails, emails, emails, I have emails ready, references ready, just to send.

“I wake up every morning from Monday to Friday just to e-mailing, looking everywhere, and on weekends, I call friends, all of my friends, talk to almost all of society here in Galway. It is a full-time job looking for a place – and there are no places. In the last eight months there is zero places, and the money is more than my budget.”

She added that if she were to pay the rents currently advertised for houses, she would have no money left for her children.

[ Rental crisis: 4,329 notices to quit served in final quarter of 2022 ]

Galway’s housing crisis has never been as bad as it is right now, and is on track to get worse, according to Galway City West’s Cllr Niall McNelis.

“I have just so little trust in this Government, that we just have not built the houses. We recently had 140 houses turned down in Galway by An Bord Pleanála because there wasn’t a bus route past the house,” the Labour Councillor said.

“An Bord Pleanála could have turned around and put a clause on it saying by the time the house is finished you have to have a bus route going past the house, but they didn’t do that. They just turned it down completely.”

Mr McNelis added that many students are commuting to Galway daily because they cannot find accommodation.

He also criticised the short-term letting industry, with 670 homes available on Airbnb in the city.

“When we are using hotels for families and then we are using apartments for tourists, it has flipped it, it just does not make sense,” he said.

The Councillor spoke of one family he knows who have been living in a bed and breakfast for 16 months.

“What’s going to happen here is you are going to have a load of landlords who are going to use this opportunity to get their tenants out so they can up the rents because they have had tenants in situ for so long, and they’ll go to the private sector and get those private rents up.”

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He added that the rental situation in the country at the moment is “a huge strain on people”.

“A lot of stuff I would be dealing with is not just the families but it would be individuals who through circumstances of their own have ended up as single, and they are sleeping on their families’ couches – and these are people in their 50s, early to late 50s, and still working, and they just cannot get anywhere.”

There are no extra resources to be put in place by Galway City Council with the lifting of the eviction ban, according to Cllr McNelis, “because they haven’t got anything”.

Ending the moratorium at this juncture, without other measures actually being in place and activated, is inevitably going to result in an increase in homelessness

—  Martin O’Connor, Cope Galway

“Galway is your perfect example of the tsunami – you’ve got your students, you’ve got your tourists, you’ve got your workers, and you’ve got those on low-income jobs, and they are all struggling, and they are all pulling from the same pot.”

Assistant chief executive of Cope Galway, Martin O’Connor, said there is a “very concerning challenge” ahead with the lifting of the eviction ban, considering that the circumstances regarding housing in Galway have not changed since the ban’s implementation.

“The situation that prevailed coming into last autumn-into-winter in terms of the no further capacity in emergency homeless accommodation – unfortunately that is persisting here in Galway, and the eviction ban I know was in large part a response to that situation.

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“Has that changed? No, is the short answer to it,” he said.

Mr O’Connor said Cope Galway relies significantly on tourist accommodation to provide for those who present as homeless.

Of the 75 families that the charity is currently working with in emergency accommodation, 64 are placed in tourist accommodation.

“Galway is a tourist destination, and we know from here onwards this year we are going to see tourist accommodation providers having less and less available for the placement of homeless households,” he said.

“I think the reliance on tourist accommodation has probably hit a point here in Galway that, if there’s any prospect of increasing availability there, it will be minimal.”

The assistant chief executive said the moratorium on evictions was recognition of the capacity challenges being faced in meeting homeless and emergency accommodation needs.

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“It was highlighted that there was no capacity in the emergency homeless accommodation provision, and then that largely has not changed, so the circumstances that led to the moratorium on evictions being introduced in the first instance – they persist,” Mr O’Connor said.

“And the measures to mitigate that have not today taken affect, so ending the moratorium at this juncture, without other measures actually being in place and activated, is inevitably going to result in an increase in homelessness.”

There are currently nine properties available for rent in Galway city centre on Daft.ie, one of which is a hostel offering student accommodation.

The website currently has 23 properties looking to house-share, also including the hostel.

In the suburbs of the city there are 22 properties for rent, and 43 to share.