Minister promises 10 times more social houses by year end

The number of social houses built will increase tenfold by the end of the year, Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has said.

He was speaking following a homeless forum at the Department of the Environment on Monday which was held to discuss winter preparedness for those in the homeless sector.

It comes just weeks before the first anniversary of the death of homeless man Jonathan Corrie, near Leinster House. His death on December 1st 2014 gave rise to widespread calls for more urgent action on the needs of rough sleepers.

Mr Kelly confirmed only 20 social houses had been built in the first half of 2015. However, he said: "I can assure you that will increase substantially by the end of the year. It will be ten times higher.

Announcing more sites

“The issue here is that the volume of sites is in excess of 200. Myself and Minister [Paudie] Coffey will be announcing a lot more sites in the coming weeks.”

Mr Kelly said €4 billion has been allocated to local authorities to build social houses but they cannot be built overnight.

The Minister insisted the department was “quite happy” with the turnaround by the councils. He said anybody who wanted a bed by Christmas would have one. “There will be over 300 beds available for anyone sleeping rough. Anybody who wants a bed over this Christmas period will get it.”

Charities working with the homeless were cautiously positive after the forum. Niamh Randall, head of policy with the Simon Communities, however said she remained "very concerned about the future".

“We have concerns about the numbers [of homeless] growing month by month. The numbers stuck in emergency accommodation are growing.”

While the rent certainty measures announced last week would offer some stability, rent supplement rates remained too low. “So we are going to see more people pushed out of their rented homes into homelessness.”

Mike Allen, director of advocacy with Focus Ireland, said there was now no reason not to increase rent supplement, given the two-year "rent freeze" announced last week.

Bob Jordan, chief executive of Threshold, said the charity was getting between 40 and 50 calls a day from tenants concerned about rent increases.

Alice Leahy, founder of Trust, which works with rough sleepers, said she felt "the Department and the Minister really are doing a very good job, in very challenging times".

Other issues

“People will die on the streets because of their lifestyle,” she said. “People won’t change because we want them to change. Some people won’t go into emergency beds . . . The beds will be there. So if people die on the streets there are other issues, because homelessness is extremely complex.”