The next Government has been urged to end long-term homelessness by 2030 among a number of “key actions” that an umbrella group of organisations dealing with the issue want the incoming coalition to commit to.
The Irish Homeless Policy Group (IHPG) – which includes Focus Ireland, Threshold, the Irish Refugee Council and others – have made the call as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael continue talks aimed at developing a programme for government.
The 10 key actions the group is seeking include the development of collaborative structures to end homelessness and ensuring more than 55,000 homes are built each year to meet housing needs across Irish society.
They also want measures to ensure that nobody has to sleep rough, called for the development of a strategy for the private rental sector and improved transparency in relation to access to homeless services.
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Earlier this month it was reported that the number of homeless people living in emergency accommodation has surpassed 15,000.
IHPG chairperson Emma Byrne said the group believes the 10 key actions should be included in the next programme for government.
She said: “It’s quite rare to get this level of agreement across organisations working in and around an issue.
“We believe that this signals both the scale of the issue and the different types of people that have been affected by the housing and homelessness crisis.”
Mike Allen of Focus Ireland said his organisation wants to see people in long-term homelessness prioritised for housing and a commitment to try to create a scheme to do this.
He said this is not simple, acknowledging there can be “perceptions of unfairness”, but he said it is possible.
Mr Allen said: “if the government currently under formation fails to devise such a scheme, it will continue to fail on homelessness even if it succeeds on housing”.
Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne, who attended the IHPG launch event said he thinks an emergency eviction ban needs to be reintroduced as there were 16,000 notices to quit issued last year. He asked for views on the proposal.
Ann-Marie O’Reilly of Threshold said any such ban would probably only be brought in for a short time and her organisation would prefer to see legislation to tackle no-fault evictions.
She said a majority of people receiving notices of termination get them because their landlord wants to sell the property.
“We want to move to a situation where someone doesn’t have to move just because their landlord is selling the property”.
Nick Henderson of the Irish Refugee Council highlighted how more than 5,000 international protection applicants have ended up homeless over the last two years since the State stopped guaranteeing accommodation for all asylum seekers due to the shortage of places.
He said: “We’re calling on the next government to closely consider these recommendations and to implement them and to work with us as organisations, as experts and manage and solve this issue.”
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