Warning homelessness will spike as eviction ban ends

The governments decision to end the eviction ban at the end of this month has been met with warnings that homelessness will increase and more homeless people will die.

In the Dail today, Deputy Peadar Toibin said "many thousands of families living at the edge of eviction will be petrified tonight" as they lose their last protection.

The Mayor of Navan, Cllr Eddie Fennessy, said; "It is a hammer blow to hard pressed workers and families who have been neglected and impoverished by Fine Gael housing policy over the past twelve years."

Cllr Alan Lawes said ending the ban was very worrying as it had kept approximately 3000 people out of homelessness. "Our homeless figures are at their highest ever," he said.

The Minister for Housing, Darragh O'Brien said the ban on evictions will not be extended beyond the end of this month due to concerns that an extension would damage the supply of rental properties in the long term.

He said the Government was concerned that an extension of the ban would damage the supply of homes in the long term if more landlords left the rental market.

Cllr Fennessy warned that ending the ban will cause a huge spike in the number of local families entering homelessness."

"It's a worrying development and a decision that makes no sense at all, given that the homeless figures have risen every month since the ban was introduced.

"The government were forced to introduce the measure six months ago because nineteen of the twenty six local authorities in this state couldn't find emergency accommodation for families entering homelessness.

"Fine Gael and Fianna Fail haven't rolled out any substantive measures that I can see, to address that crisis. And local families protected by the eviction moratorium, now face the prospect of homelessness in April.

"It is a hammer blow to hard pressed workers and families who have been neglected and impoverished by Fine Gael housing policy over the past twelve years," he said.

Speaking in the Dáil today Deputy Tóibín said; “Nearly 400 people have died in homelessness in five years just in Dublin, the figure is far higher nationally, but your government doesn’t feel the need to measure the number of people dying around the country in homelessness.

"Heartbreakingly, these statistics do not include those sleeping rough. 11,754 people are homeless, over 3,000 are children. Some of these children are spending their third St Patrick's Day living in a hotel room. This will change their lives and not for the better. It will damage their nutrition, their education, their mental health and their socialisation. The decision you have made today to lift the eviction ban will create more homeless families and more homeless children of that we can be sure.

“Many thousands of families are living at the edge of eviction will be petrified tonight at the thought that you have taken down their last protection. There has been an effort by the government to blame the eviction ban for the rising level of homeless people. This is s a nonsense. There are 160,000 empty homes throughout the state. Your government still hasn’t managed to implement the vacant home tax or provide a workable grant system to get homes back into use. Hundreds of homes are being used for Air BnBs. Families are living in homes and tourist are staying in hotels. This is the mixed up, muddled up world of this government”.

“Cabinet has agreed to give in situ tenants first refusal to buy their home if it's being sold. We are told that there will be a Local Authority purchase alternative for in situ tenants also . Why not delay the ending of the eviction ban until you have delivered on these objectives. If there is threat of a flight of land lords why not reform the taxation system that they are operating within," he said.

Cllr Lawes said that at the time of our highest homeless figures ever, this was very worrying. "The ban has been stopping 3,000 households going into homelessness. Ending the ban is going to cause huge problems.

"The government are worried the ban will cause landlords to flee the market, but if they made it more attractive to landlords with better tax arrangements and longer leases, that wouldn't happen."

The homeless charity Depaul expressed its disappointment about the decision not to extend the eviction ban as temporary accommodation services are already at capacity.

David Carroll, Chief Executive of Depaul said “The moratorium on evictions has been successful in preventing the scale of evictions which would have been beyond the capacity of homeless services. Any significant increase in presentations will be very difficult to deal with. The moratorium was designed to buy us time to increase supply and target those most at risk of eviction and this has not been fully achieved.”

Depaul had called for a focused and targeted extension to allow for specific measures to be implemented that could assist small landlords and renters.

“Whilst the government announced intention to purchase 1,500 properties from landlords and lease another 1,000 units for homeless people, Depaul has one key question as to what the temporary accommodation plan over the next few weeks and months will be in order to deal with short term pressures? Depaul will be working with statutory agencies in order to understand what steps will be taken in this area.”

“With approximately 3,000 Notices to quit being issued up to the end of June 2022 we are expecting an unprecedented demand for our emergency accommodation services. We understand the complexities of the decision but there is widespread angst across the sector as we prepare to deal with what may come.”

“Depaul currently provides 626 temporary accommodation beds across Ireland, with waiting lists for many of our services. For the last 18 months, homelessness has increased by almost 40% with 11,754 people currently accessing emergency accommodation. Housing supply is unlikely to meet the needs of those within our services in 2023. It is imperative that we understand where the additional temporary accommodation will be found to deal with the inevitable increased presentations to homelessness

“Now that the decision has been made it is important that the government focuses on the specific measures required to target those private rented tenancies that are most at risk.

“Young people and single people accessing the private rental sector will be severely impacted by today’s decision. Almost one in two people accessing our emergency accommodation services are aged between 18-30 years old. Therefore it's essential that we target young people who may enter temporary accommodation for the first time in the coming months to get them back into the community and into long term housing. If we allow people to have prolonged periods in temporary accommodation it will create longer problems for those young people”.