Another week, another batch of frustration and anger about housing and homelessness. The public has high demands – unrealistic, some politicians might say. Perhaps we don’t know the full picture. Maybe we just don’t “get” all the work and funding that’s going into the issue. Unfortunately for politicians, for the public the proof of the pudding will always be in the eating.
A domino was tipped when the Taoiseach said we have a relatively low rate of homelessness compared with our “peer countries”. What does that mean? It’s a vague and unsubstantiated claim that hasn’t been backed up by figures. It’s also difficult to compare homelessness from country to country due to the different ways of measuring homelessness and the different kinds of homelessness measured. So why did the Taoiseach say it? And why does the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, repeat similar things? If you’re not going to come out with the actual data to enlighten the public on this issue, then such statements really do feel like efforts to minimise our homelessness crisis.
This was compounded by Minister of State for housing Damien English’s face-palm remark that it wasn’t “acceptable to hear commentators talking down our country. Over the past two years we have seen this narrative reflected in the national media.” The media did not manufacture a homelessness “narrative”. Blaming the media for reporting on and commentating on a homelessness crisis is silly. What damages Ireland’s reputation more than talking about a homelessness crisis? Probably the homelessness crisis itself, I’d imagine.
Bad behaviour
Eileen Gleeson of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive’s remarks about homelessness can best be described as poorly timed. She spoke about “bad behaviour” by homeless people and how various voluntary efforts reaching out to homeless people weren’t going to ultimately provide a solution.
Gleeson certainly could have phrased things better. Her remarks were a lightning rod to a public that is exasperated by the lack of empathy that seems to underpin what is perceived as apathy towards those most vulnerable in society. As ropy as her remarks were, the response to them was also overcooked. There is a correlation between the ridiculousness of English blaming the media and the public blaming Gleeson for a crisis neither is responsible for. In a way, these are all distractions from the larger, purposeful economic and ideological forces at work that created and sustain this crisis. That’s what we need to tackle.
Varadkar, English and Gleeson all said things that feed into a suspicion about homelessness being normalised or minimised. Considering the housing crisis is getting worse on the ground – and that’s the bit the public sees – regardless of what strategies or progress is being made in the background, you can’t blame people for jumping on the type of rhetoric that at this stage is a red rag to a bull.
The homeless population in August was 8,270. In August last year it was 6,611. That is a remarkable jump. I know solutions and initiatives and strategies can take a long time to kick in, but these numbers are real, and often promises and plans don’t feel very real at all.
The Government has failed to communicate the severity of the crisis and shies away from confronting the interconnectedness of the housing crisis, across the rental crisis, ridiculous rises in house prices, lack of supply, lack of affordable rent or housing, lack of existing social housing and the lack of social housing being built, massively oversubscribed housing lists, repossessions, tenement-like conditions for some renters, lack of emergency accommodation, the impact of families living in hotels, the fact that many people granted asylum have to remain in direct provision due to lack of housing, child homelessness, general homelessness … I could go on, because our housing crisis is multifaceted and culminates at the most severe end of the scale in homelessness. The more extreme the housing crisis, the more the population of homeless people grows.
No social housing
It has been 636 days since the last general election was held. It then took 63 days of negotiations to form a minority government. Around Dublin city, where homelessness is acutely visible, the change in that time has included higher rents, expensive student accommodation, house prices escalating out of control, reduced rental supply, queues outside apartment viewings, people moving out of the city because they can’t afford it, and so on. This conjures an atmosphere of very real fear; fear of a landlord selling a house, fear of exercising the limited tenants’ rights people have, fear of a rise in rent, fear of bidding increasingly ridiculous prices on houses that will stretch personal finances to the limit. Fear is also exacerbated in information vacuums.
As reported last week, in data compiled by housing policy analyst Mel Reynolds, less that 1 per cent of the social housing needed across the State has been built by local authorities or approved by housing bodies since the start of last year. Less than 1 per cent. “In the first six months of this year no social housing was built directly by three of the capital’s authorities, with a combined [housing waiting list] of 33,180 households. Just Fingal, which has a waiting list of 7,027, built, a total of just 10 units.” That does not happen by accident.
Isn’t it awful that politicians don’t like the public getting annoyed by this? If they want that anger to abate, they’re going to have to actually instil confidence by communicating how the crisis is – genuinely – being tackled. It’s not as if the public don’t want to see improvements, it’s just that they can’t.