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THE GOVERNMENT HAS come in for criticism as latest figures show that the number of homeless families staying in commercial hotels in Dublin has risen again, reaching its highest point in months.
Throughout the last week in November there were 758 families residing in private, commercial hotels in the Dublin region, with the number at 722 for the last night of that month.
This marks a jump of 42 families on October. The figures for November are the highest since May of last year.
This is despite a huge push and investment by government since late 2016 to move families out of hotels and into group style accommodation, known as “family hubs”.
As families started moving into these hubs, the number in hotels began to go down from a peak of 815 in March.
However, in recent months they have begun to rise again.
When compared with November 2016, there are 22 fewer families in hotels.
But while the number of families in hotels has dropped slightly over the year, the number in other forms of homeless accommodation has almost doubled (from 243 in November 2016 to 430 in November 2017).
The latest figures for Dublin are contained in a Homeless Update report presented this week to DCC’s Housing Special Policy Committee.
The report
The report shows that in November of last year a total of 3,691 adults and 2,533 children accessed emergency accommodation in the Dublin Region.
In November a total of 85 new families presented to homeless services and entered into emergency accommodation in the capital.
As well as this, DCC said that another 79 families were prevented from becoming homeless by being placed into tenancies, mainly through the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme.
HAP is a form of social housing support that is paid to private landlords by local councils on behalf of tenants.
In November, 72 families were moved out of homelessness and into tenancies (mostly through HAP) – meaning that there was a net increase of 13 homeless families in Dublin.
Between July and September of last year, 290 families were made homeless who had never been homeless before.
Half of these families were made homeless as they had either lost or were unable to source private rental accommodation.
Homelessness charity Focus Ireland said that more newly homeless families contacted them looking for help over the Christmas period than ever before at that time.
Family hubs
In July 2016 the government launched Rebuilding Ireland – its Housing Action Plan.
Contained within in the plan was a commitment to end the use of commercial hotels for housing homeless families by July 2017.
At the time there were 731 families staying in hotels in Dublin, 27 fewer than there are now.
Former Housing Minister Simon Coveney made this one of his key commitments while in office, repeating the pledge multiple times.
The family hub model was introduced to help achieve this aim, with millions of euros of funding provided by the Housing Department to have to hubs up and running in time to make the deadline.
While a number of hubs were opened, many were delayed and behind schedule. This was coupled with delays in providing rapid-build housing as well as ever-increasing numbers of families becoming homeless.
The end result was that by July last year, the deadline for getting families out of hotels was missed by a large margin. There were still 753 homeless families in hotels in Dublin – more than when the commitment was first made.
Coveney stepped aside as Housing Minister around this time. One of incoming Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy’s first acts was to announce that the July target would not be met.
Despite questions from TheJournal.ie at the time, the minister did not set a new date for ending the use of hotels for housing homeless families.
Two new family hubs opened in December, and three more are due to open this month.
With these five hubs operational, 136 new family rooms should be available by the end of this month, meaning the number of families in hotels could start to decrease again.
However, experts fear that unless measures are brought in to stop families being evicted, the number of families in hubs will increase, but the number of hotels will not go down.
“Unless they introduce measures to stop families being evicted when landlords sell up, the number of families in hubs will rise but the number in hotels won’t fall,” Mike Allen, director of advocacy with Focus Ireland, told TheJournal.ie.
A bill aimed at preventing the sale of property being used as a grounds for terminating a tenancy was early last year voted down by the government.
As well as being highly unsuitable for families, commercial hotels are also a highly expensive form of emergency accommodation for Dublin City Council to pay for.
Figures show that Dublin hoteliers and B&B operators received €23.9 million in payments to house homeless families in the first six months of last year.
While family hubs are seen as an improvement on hotels, they have also been criticised as highly unsuitable for housing homeless families.
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Trampolines are having a ball playing musical gardens too.
Isn’t it about time that power lines were buried ?
Why so they can pose more of a threat to farmers and construction workers?
Best kept in plain sight.
More killed by overhead cables Jennie.
Where did you hear that Mark?
Because almost all our medium to high voltage lines are overhead so naturally this poses more of a risk. But we have far more cable strikes from underground cables than from overhead cables. Irish water workers for example tend to have 300 to 400 cable strikes a month, all underground.
And just how many deaths came from those 300 to 400 cable strikes a month Keane? Thank you.
You missed the point Mark. The deaths will come if you star sticking the high voltage lines underground. Even the Dutch who pretty much have 100% low to medium voltage lines underground, will not put high voltage lines underground.
Great idea, only cost about a few billion, maybe we could levy the consumers.
It costs too much to put cables underground. Overhead are easier to maintain. The odd downed power line is a easier price to pay than ducting the whole country.
Did you consider the unbelievable cost of burying all such cables? C’mon!!
“Our whole wall fell down..” Well im not surprised since you effectively fixed a timber sail to it from what I can see in the photo.
Very windy in Donegal my house moved a yard last night!
My house took in the front lawn.
Was in meath yesterday and two enormous trees fell on the road in front of the car only missed us by a couple of feet. Scary
I don’t think were in Kansas anymore Toto.
And wheelie bins!
Our wheelie bins were like a couple of R2D2′s last night…being blown around aimlessly
Well batten down the hatches cause it aint over.
To the driver of the jeep on m9 dublin carlow yesterday for making shit of my car when your plastic material flew out including ratchet straps , my bumper grills spot lights and drivers light (€1600) also 2 other cars damaged, you pulled over down the motorway realised what you done jumped back in and sped off , shame on you, we could have been killed, and it’s me that has to somehow pay for this for your thickness
That is honestly disgusting that they didn’t take responsibility for their crap.
Turn on the washing machines
There’s great drying out !!
That’s because none are underground.
So obviously yes more are killed by overhead cables.
If they’re underground you’ll all be giving out that they’ll limit what you can do with your land too much. Ie building works etc.
And if something goes wrong it’ll be a much bigger job to fix. Digging up cable to try and find the break. Relaying the whole length. Etc
I think if you look, most cities and towns, and certainly all newer developments, have now buried the cables. This has led to far less disruption and far fewer deaths. It isn’t that difficult to map where power lines are buried.
As an aside, overhead cables are an unsightly blight on our landscape.
*to sorry
Also it’ll do a huge amount of damage to the landscape and the environment laying them underground in the first place….
Out of sight, Out of mind isn’t always the best policy
Everyone starts juicing and detoxing after new years: giant uptake in wind speeds. Coincidence? I think not.
Kevin Hunt really exposing some shoddy workmanship on that wall. It’s only a bit of wind.
Well I didn’t build the wall?! and the neighbors had the fence not us
And tell your neighbour it’s time to put the crimbo decorations away.
I didn’t say you, Kev. I said you exposed shoddy workmanship.
Oh sorry haha, Ye I guess so!
Snow in Fermangh. Not settling but great to look at
Bit of snow here in Cavan, just enough to lightly dust an annoyed cat.
Thankfully we escaped it in cork but was quite windy for a time but it blew itself out late last night
#JeSuisKevinHunt
There was a might wind in co Louth after that hot curry last night
“Mighty”
Our trampoline hasntlufted a finger yet! youd think it would have blown to the next county with these winds lol!
Go home snowman, you are drunk.
That’s the problem with Irish water not obeying safety legislation when digging holes in footpaths
It depends alot on the machine driver. I work with one who could stir your tea with a 13 Tonne machine. I’ve worked with other lads you wouldn’t trust digging a hole with a teaspoon.
Short hairy and fat. Perfectly adapted for this weather. Form an orderly que ladies.
If the night of the big wind happened in 1839 (6th Jan) then if it happened again with global warming, what would we do?
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