Sir, - We have come together as a group of national organisations, representing tens of thousands of people affected by the current housing crises, to express our concern over the lack of a comprehensive and inclusive housing policy.
The Government's recently published Action on House Prices, is a welcomed first step in addressing the issue of affordability of homeownership, especially for middle income first time buyers. However, responding to the concerns of house purchasers is offering a one-dimensional response to a multi-dimensional problem. The proposed actions ignore the wider housing crises in homelessness, local authority and social housing and the private rented sector, especially for those on low incomes.
In particular the response fails to address:
the situation where over 40,000 households, in receipt of SWA Rent Allowance, are living at the lower end of the private rented sector in what is increasingly expensive, often of poor quality, largely unregistered accommodation, and subject to almost a negligible level of monitoring for even the most basic of standards;
the inability of the private rented sector to provide accommodation that is affordable, habitable, that offers security of tenure and some stability in rental costs;
the lack of appropriate housing for people who are homeless;
the lack of adequate funding arrangements to cover the management and running costs of sheltered housing, hostels and settlement services;
the situation where the increased cost of construction is putting continued stress on capital funding arrangements for social housing schemes;
the situation where over 30,000 households are in need of social housing and on local authority waiting lists, while at the same time the number of new local authority houses that will become available this year number no more than 7,000;
the lack of housing options available to people who are released from prison, the elderly, separated people, those living with a physical disability, single parent families, those living with a mental illness, and rehabilitated drug users;
the lack of funding for the provision of recreational, cultural, shopping and development facilities on already poorly designed local authority estates;
the lack of control in respect of upper income house purchasers moving in particular to rural areas and transforming the property market to the exclusion of local low to middle income households.
These are just some of the outstanding housing issues that need to be addressed.
It is our view that a National Commission on Housing should be constituted and the results analysed by the National Economic and Social Council in order to develop a comprehensive and inclusive housing policy. - Yours, etc.,
Kieran Murphy, Director, Threshold, Michael Bruton, Chief Executive, Focus Ireland, Liam O'Dwyer, Administrator, St Vincent de Paul, Dick Shannon, Director, Simon Community of Ireland, Muireann Morris, Chief Executive, Sonas Housing Association.