There has been a dramatic increase in the numbers waiting to be housed in the Sligo Corporation area, from 220 in 1996 to about 500 now, as rising prices push more and more people out of the market. Over the past nine months 100 new applications have been received. Sligo Corporation housing officer Mr John Moran says he would now describe it as "a serious situation. We are now seeing people coming on to the list that we wouldn't have seen before." Of the 500 households on Sligo Corporation's waiting list, about half are families in need of three or four-bedroom houses. Another 20 per cent, generally one-parent families, are in need of two-bedroom houses and the remaining 30 per cent are waiting for one-bedroom accommodation.
The Department of the Environment has approved funding for the building of 210 houses in the corporation area over the next four years, a level generally seen as inadequate. Mr Moran says that getting land has not been a problem to date and that one 10-acre site has already been acquired at Caltragh. He hopes that some 65 houses of the 210 will be started this year. However, the time-lag from funding approval to completion can be up to two years, and he does not expect this to change. The Government has just changed the system from giving yearly allocations to telling local authorities what they can build over four years - a move aimed at helping them plan more in advance.
Funding was approved for 45 houses in 1999. Of these 19 were purchased, and building is starting on the remaining 26. These are not expected to be completed until the end of the year. Mr Moran says some of the delay is due to the time needed for planning permission. There are other funding schemes under which Sligo Corporation could get more houses built and Mr Moran says he is hoping to avail of these. Funding is available for social housing projects and St Pancras Housing Association has already completed a very successful estate in Sligo. It has also taken over a rundown area in the town, Banks Drive in Cranmore, and is refurbishing and redesigning the houses there. However, elected councillors and the voters they represent have only themselves to blame for one such scheme not going ahead. They voted last year against an application by Focus Ireland for a social housing project at Ash Lane.
The new Affordable Housing Scheme is another way of getting new houses built and getting some people off the list. The corporation builds the houses, sells them at cost price and gives low-interest mortgages to the owners. Again, however, it will take some time before this scheme is implemented. A total of 80 applications have so far been received, some from people on the general waiting list. These applications are now being assessed and work is expected to start on 18 houses within the next three months. These should be completed nine months later. Mr Moran says it will not be possible to say when all of the people who want to avail of this scheme and are eligible will be accommodated because of the time taken to plan the projects.
Overall, he says the problem remains that new starts do not match increased demand for public housing. "It has clearly become much more difficult to deal with. We could have done with more than the 210 approved," he says.