Government to create 47,000 social homes

An additional 47,000 social housing units, a doubling of housing output overall and the end of 100 per cent social housing estates, are central to Government’s plan to deliver a functioning housing sector by 2021.

Speaking as he introduced the Government's 80-point "Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness", Minister for Housing Simon Coveney said his reputation would be judged on "getting urgency" into fixing the sector and in particular on "getting much better outcomes" for people who are homeless.

No one should be “under any illusion”, he said. Realising the plan’s ambition was the Government’s number one priority. “It’s my job to deliver that,” he said.

Vision

Taoiseach Enda Kenny described the plan as “ambitious in its vision and scale of investment” and said its implementation would be overseen by the Cabinet committee on housing, which he chaired.

The five pillars of the €5.35 billion plan, titled Rebuilding Ireland, are headed: address homelessness, accelerate social housing, build more homes, improve the rental sector and utilise existing housing.

A total of 47,000 social houses and apartments would be delivered between now and 2021, of which 26,000 would be newly-built, about 10,000 “acquired” through either purchase or long-term leasing and 11,000 built, acquired or leased, he said.

Overall housing output will be doubled, to 25,000 per year by 2020, compared with 12,666 last year. There were 93,419 units completed in 2006.

The immediate focus would be on delivering a visible impact on homelessness, said Minister for Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohoe. "We want to end families living in emergency hotel and B&B accommodation."

The latest figures, for June, published last night by the Department of Housing, show there were 2,206 children in 1,078 families, in emergency accommodation across the State - of which 1,894 children in 939 families were in Dublin in the week of June 20th-26th.

Mr Coveney said yesterday the Government was “setting a bold ambition” for this time next year to have no reliance on B&B accommodation or hotel accommodation for families.

Rapid-build

He said this would be achieved by trebling the planned delivery of rapid-build housing, from 500 to 1,500, by the end of 2018.

Two hundred would be delivered this year – of which 22 have been delivered so far – with 800 next year and 500 more in 2018.

More supports, including free transport and access to nutritious meals for homeless families, will be put in place.

The capacity of the Housing First scheme – which places rough sleepers straight into housing rather than putting them through a series of steps such as hostels – will be trebled from 100 to 300.

The HSE budget for the health needs of the homeless is to be increased from €2 million to €6 million per annum and a new, large addiction treatment and detoxification centre will be provided by 2018 in Dublin city centre.

“What we are trying to target here is not simply building homes for people but actually helping people rebuild their lives ,” said Mr Coveney.

The chapter on homelessness was the first in the plan “for a reason”.

“It’s a big and strong chapter on homelessness and I hope to get much better outcomes . . . and we will be judged on that,” he said.

The “biggest new idea” in the plan was the “ambition to create mixed tenure developments”, said the Minister.

Housing estates

Gone would be the large-scale “acres and acres” of social housing on single sites and in their place housing estates where anyone who drive in would not know “what’s social and what’s private”.

Other schemes, new to the Irish context, will be affordable rental – purpose built units, typically let at 70 per cent of market rents, and build-to-rent projects where long-term investors, such as pension funds, are encouraged to provide large-scale developments specifically for rental.