The homelessness charities have questions to answer

In February the number of people officially said to be homeless across the state was 11,754.

In May, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage reported that a total of 8,742 adults had accessed local authority accommodation during the last week of that month.  There were a further 3,699 children who were homeless as dependents of those adults so the total number was 12,441, a significant increase from the start of the year:

The figure for the total number of people officially homeless had more than doubled since August 2020. Much of that has been attributed to rising rents and the difficulties of people, whether as individuals or families, in securing accommodation.  The statistics on rent increases certainly point to that being a major contributory factor. 

It is also the case that enormous pressure has been placed upon the housing sector by the large numbers of people coming to live here, and in particular in the main urban centres, from overseas. While those who are working are generally able to find somewhere to stay, sometimes with the assistance of the companies who have taken leases on accommodation, that is not always the case. 

It is apparent too that many of those who have come to live in the state are not working and are therefore on local authority housing lists. This is confirmed, and has been reported on by Gript, across many local authority areas. In February of this year, more than one third of those on the Laois County Council housing list were non-nationals, as were just over half of those claiming Housing Assistance Payment in the county. This is also a factor in the huge increase in the numbers who are officially homeless figures.

Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the the main contributory factors and the one of the main reasons why the numbers have risen so dramatically over the past three years. That is shown by the number of people of other than Irish nationality who are counted among the statistics. 

Of the 8,742 adults who were officially homeless in May this year, a total of 3,567 or 41% were not Irish citizens, rising to 47% in Dublin. This in turn reflects the fact that a large proportion of those travelling to the country, including from within the EU, are coming here with no jobs and with little prospect or perhaps even desire to get a job. 

If there is a bright spot in the otherwise gloomy scenario, it is related to the numbers of people actually without a roof over their heads, which appears to have fallen since mid 2021. Last Winter, Dublin City Council reported that there were 91 rough sleepers in the city. The vast majority were males (63) and most (55) were between the ages of 26 and 45. 

The numbers of rough sleepers are virtually unchanged over the more than two years. It is worth recalling perhaps that when Simon was founded here in 1969, as a completely voluntary and non state assisted organisation, that it solely concentrated on assisting rough sleepers. That issue is one that will always be with us it seems as it relates to underlying issues that have little or nothing to do with why most people who are registered as homeless cannot access accommodation. 

The housing and homelessness NGOs have been very vocal about the rising levels of that kind of homelessness. However, while they are not responsible for any of that, there are legitimate questions to be asked with regards to how effective they are. And indeed whether they serve any real purpose in tackling a problem that the state itself appears to be happy to farm out to others. 

Like others in the NGO sector, the homelessness companies are happy to add migrancy to their portfolio of claims on the generosity of the public, but they seem to be unaware of the connection between opportunist immigration and the pressures on accommodation. Or if they are aware, they prefer to ignore it in favour of joining in the virtue signaling that surrounds this issue. 

According to the financial reports of five of the main homeless NGOs operating in the Dublin region, they had an income of €137 million in 2021. Of that figure, €86.2 million came directly from the taxpayer.  The five: Dublin Simon, Focus, McVerry Trust, Novas and Threshold employed 1774 people. 

So while the numbers of homeless has expanded so too have the numbers of those making a living from supposedly helping to solve the problem. In fact, the numbers employed and the amounts of money they have access to appear to be in inverse proportion to finding that solution. In 2018, Dublin Simon had a total income of €21.5 million – €11.5 million from the state, and employed 309 people.  Now it brings in €25.6 million (€17.35 million from the state) and pays the wages of 413 people. 

Those five NGOs alone now have a combined income that has increased by over €32 million in the last five or six years. Over 60% of that increase has consisted of money granted from various government departments and local authorities. A substantial part of that goes to pay the salaries of those newly employed. 

Even if we just take the five organisations listed above, there is one person employed by them for every three households accounted homeless in Dublin. Their total income amounts to over €25,000 for each homeless household in the region. That would be sufficient to pay rent for more than a year for most houses and apartments.

When all of the funding that is devoted to tackling this issue either though direct payments to the NGOs; via loans from the Housing Finance Agency which had a loan book of €6.7 billion in 2022 and which have allowed the Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to accumulate a pretty vast property portfolio; the effective subsidy to landlords through the HAP; the budget for the housing departments of the state and local authorities, and others, there is an enormous amount of money, billions, devoted to tackling a problem that just seems to get worse.

One of the things that the Irish state did get largely right over a long period, from the 1930s to the early 1980s, was the provision of housing for its citizens. Central to that was a generally effective blending of public finance, direct local authority supply, and private sector construction. It can be validly argued that this was undermined not least by corruption, but it is a model surely worth looking at again.

It also, of course, was in place when those tasked with administering the state retained some part of the vision that had led to its foundation. It was a time when voluntary and co-operative and charity in the context of housing and care for those less fortunate meant what the words are supposed to mean, rather than being a label for multi billion Euro companies that provide little bang for their buck.