As winter approaches and the number of homeless families continues to increase, particularly in Dublin, the problem of homelessness and of housing shortages has become more pressing. Countrywide more than 2,500 individuals are now using State funded emergency accommodation The Government has set a medium term target – to eliminate involuntary long-term homelessness by 2016. And within weeks the Government will publish a social housing strategy, which, as Tánaiste, Joan Burton has made clear, would involve " a more ambitious build programme and the facilitation of increased private sector construction". To date, however, the Government's response to the housing shortage has been largely one of struggling to contain an unfolding crisis.
Homelessness is the most acute manifestation of the housing problem. A conference on the subject heard recently that in Dublin 294 families were living in emergency accommodation last month – over half of whom (including 341 children) were occupying hotel rooms. Dublin City Council is proposing to build prefab houses on derelict sites to accommodate homeless families. It is a temporary solution, and far from ideal, but it still represents a better alternative to that of placing homeless families in hotels. Temporary accommodation in prefab homes – before permanent housing can be provided – offers families more security and more space, and also ensures that children are safer, and better protected.
The difficulties in the housing market are a consequence of the economic downturn, the bursting of the property bubble and the nature of the economic recovery now underway. House prices halved from peak to trough.
And house prices even in Dublin, which rose by 23 per cent last year, are only now just above building cost. It means that at the current house price level, house building is not yet seen as an attractive investment. For builders the financial risks may still outweigh the potential rewards – or profit to be made. As demand for housing exceeds supply and house prices have risen, so also have rents. And for some living in private rented accommodation, as renting has become less affordable, their risk of homelessness has also increased.
For the Government the challenges on housing provision remain. Can it increase rent supplement payments to assist those in private rented accommodation? This year some 73,800 individuals have received such support, at a cost of over €344 million. And can the Government, Fr McVerry also asked, bring in some controls on rents to ensure landlords cannot arbitrarily raise rents by up to 20 per cent? What the Government will do, both in this and in other respects, should be clearer next month when it publishes its new social housing strategy and reveals the 2015 budget details.