Empty homes should be seized for social housing, McVerry says

The Government needs to employ compulsory purchase powers to seize empty private homes to use as social housing, homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry has said.

The number of homeless people placed in emergency accommodation by the Peter McVerry Trust increased by almost 90 per cent last year, according to the charity’s annual report.

The organisation said it made 3,847 emergency placements last year.

Speaking at an event to mark the publication of the report, Fr McVerry said he expected these figures to increase again this year.

“This time last year I said 2014 was the worst year on record for homelessness. So this time I have to say that 2015 was an even worse year . . . for homelessness, and I suspect that I’ll be saying this time next year that 2016 was the worst year on record for homelessness.”

He said the doubling of the number of homeless children was particularly shocking.

“This time last year we had just over 1,000 children who were homeless in this country and 12 months later we have just over 2,000 homeless children.

“What’s even more shocking than the figures is the fact that nobody is shocked,” he said.

“This has become the new norm and if the present rate continues we will be ‘celebrating’ 3,000 homeless children next year and nobody is going to raise an eyebrow.”

Homelessness was increasing because more people were becoming homeless but fewer people were being moved on into permanent housing, he said.

“What we’re doing at the moment is trying to empty the bathtub with the taps fully on.

“More and more people are flowing into homelessness and unless that is stopped we will never solve the problem of homelessness.”

However, he did not believe that there was a problem with a lack of housing, but that there was a lack of willingness to seize empty houses.

“I believe there is no solution to homelessness without interfering with the right to private property . . . There are probably 130,000 households on those social housing waiting lists and there are 186,000 empty residential units in this country.

“Why we simply can’t take over those and use them for homelessness beats me.”

Compulsory purchase orders on many of those units would solve the supply problem, he said.

“The problem is Governments don’t like compulsory purchase order on private property, but we do it if we want to build motorways, why can’t we do it if we want to house families?”

Government action

Speaking at the same event, Minister for Housing Simon Coveney said the Housing Agency was spending €70 million on buying houses from banks and investment companies for use as social housing.

However, he said the housing waiting lists could not simply be cleared by using compulsory purchase orders to acquire vacant homes.

“A lot of the vacant properties in the county are in places were there is not a lot of housing demand.

"In Leitrim, Roscommon, Sligo, or Donegal there are unfinished housing estates, and a lot of vacant housing, but the real pressures are in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford in terms of housing need."

Homelessness figures would not rise again next year, he said.

"I do not accept the view that there is no response and no urgency and no concern at the levels of homeless families, homeless children, and homeless people in Ireland right now."