The Government needs to call an emergency Cabinet meeting to address worsening homeless crisis in Dublin and around Ireland, a leading charity has said.
Campaigner Fr Peter McVerry, from the Peter McVerry Trust, warned that under the funding mechanisms being used by the current Government to build social houses, there is not “a hope in hell” of building the 35,000 houses that have been promised.
More families became homeless in Dublin last month than in any previous month on record, the latest figures showed.
About 134 families, including 269 children, presented to homelessness services in January.
Of these, 125 families, including 253 children, had never been homeless before.
Fr McVerry said the number of new houses that can be built under this system would be about 7,500 over five years and that was totally unacceptable.
“I don’t think there is a hope in hell of producing 35,000 social houses. Last year 1,300 social houses came on stream. If that’s to be repeated over five years we are looking at 7,500 instead of the 35,000 promised. Unless there is a substantial rise in social housing starts we are not going to get anywhere near the figures that are being promised.”
Fr McVerry said homelessness is caused by Government policy and not by economic recession.
“This Government’s policies have failed to address the problem”, Fr McVerry said on Newstalk radio.
“I am hoping that the next Government will put this problem high up on their agenda”.
He was reacting to the latest record homeless figures are almost triple the number of registered homeless families in the same month last year.
Fr McVerry said the meeting was needed to call together all the relevant departments including finance, social protection, environment and the local authorities to work out a plan
He acknowledged that the Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly “got it” when it came to the homeless problem but said the Minister and his department could not solve the issue on their own.
“We need the Department of Finance to come in and the Department of Social Protection, particularly to raise the rent supplement allowance. They have been refusing to address the problem over the last two years and hence the problem is growing and growing,” Fr McVerry said.
He said putting homeless families into the private rented sector has been a failure.
“The only long term solution is to building social housing,” he said.
Fine Gael have promised to build 35,000 social houses by 2020 if elected and Fianna Fail to build 45,000 by 2021. Fr McVerry said the small print as to how these targets were to be achieved needed to be seen.
He said the current Government promised 35,000 social housing units but would not be funded by the taxpayer but by a whole range of complicated funding mechanisms.
Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe said the homeless issue was “intentifying” and caued the “most profound anxiety for people”.
Speaking on RTE radio, he agreed it was “not good” so many children were living in emergency accommodation.
“There is a duty to get children out of B&Bs and give them homes,” he said.
Mr Donohue said the best way to deliver social housing was through local authorities.
He said the Government had made 13,000 homes available over the last year and there were plans in place to open 17,000 new homes for social housing this year.
Mr Donohue said the State has been in a financial crisis for most of the government’s term of office, which it was now emerging from.
“As we have a recovered economy and we need a recovered society,” he said.
Also speaking on the programme, Fianna Fáil’s spokesman for the environment Barry Cowen said it was a “myth” the homeless crisis was a result of his party’s management of the economy.
Mr Cowen said if Fianna Fáil was elected, the party would provide a senior minister to address the problem.
He said the modular homes were not yet delivered and the Government was allowing Nama to see units to “vulture funds”.
Mr Cowen said it was “high time there was a government in place with a social conscience”.