20th May 2014
The Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) today welcomes the approval by Cabinet of the Implementation Plan on the State’s Response to Homelessness.
Mr Donal McManus, Executive Director, ICSH said ‘The measures outlined in the plan published today are wide ranging and practical and the ICSH welcome the key role which will be played by Approved Housing Bodies in its implementation’.
He added, ‘Ensuring this plan is adequately resourced will be fundamental to its success. Recent years have seen a dramatic change in how social housing need is responded to, with massively reduced capital State investment. In many cases new responses have relied on private sector initiatives and interest from developers, landlords and financial institutions’.
He commented on the challenges in the private rented sector which although it has increased in size, is very competitive, and it is low-income households who are losing out, especially in Dublin, where significant rent increases are now the norm, leaving many people with very little choice and increasingly without a home. Housing affordability coupled with the lack of supply in Dublin and other key urban areas is now the new hallmark of the housing sector ‘
Mr McManus concluded ‘While there are important measures in the short term such as utilising vacant property, and prioritising allocations for homeless households moving into social housing, the most effective way to predict and control the supply of new social housing for vulnerable households over the longer-term is to support a new programme of building new social housing. This can be partly achieved by enabling not-for-profit housing associations to bring new mixed-funding models into the mainstream by blending private finance with initial State capital and continued assistance with repayment of private loans.This can result in every euro of State funding being stretched to leverage between €3 and €5 of private finance. There are obvious benefits for the exchequer and the national debt as well as those in social housing need’.
ENDS
For further information contact Donal McManus on 01 6618334
Notes for Editors/
- The Irish Council for Social Housing is the National Federation of social housing organisations with up to 270 non profit housing associations affiliated nationwide.
- Housing associations now provide over 27,000 homes for low income families, persons who are homeless, elderly, and people with disabilities
Further information can be found on www.icsh.ie