The decline of FG?

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122842895#Comment_122842895

Homelessness is a complex problem with many causes.

There are people who will become homeless no matter what. Do you remember the guy on the street who died a few years back? It turned out he had inherited a house, sold it, spent all the money, been housed in social housing, but was unable to remain there. It will be claimed that society failed him, perhaps it did, maybe his family or friends could have done more, but at some stage, there are people for whom the type of supports that a taxpayer supported government can put in place are insufficient to help.

There were other cause celeberes who had had several options for housing and been evicted over the years due to their behaviour. The woman in the police station who had been offered several apartments but wanted a house with a garden and a trampoline as she felt entitled to.

So some people are very difficult to help out of homelessness. Then, as you mentioned, there are the pressures on numbers because Putin invaded Ukraine, the problems with builders being available, the NIMBYs who stop building projects etc. Support for refugees and Ukrainians has squeezed supply of social housing, that is undeniable, but we have obligations to help them.

The simple solutions, like government company build houses as suggested by SF and others, are naive and simplistic and do not take account of the myriad of factors behind homelessness.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122842895#Comment_122842895

According to Focus Ireland the number of homeless people was 3,607 in November 2014. This rose to a peak of 10,514 in October 2019 when it started to drop. In May 2021 it was down to 7,991 but has climbed since. January 2022 was 9,150 and February 2022 was 9,492 and it's grown since.

So the figures were already climbing before the Ukranian war started and I think it's fanciful to think that if that war hadn't started that our homeless figures would be 0.

I was listening to the Ivan Yates & Matt Cooper podcast just there and they mentioned how some of the choices made by government for the Ukranian refugee crisis were emergency actions to allow centres be built without planning and to allow people house refugees tax free, but for whatever reason the government hasn't done the same for the homeless figures we have.

The current government don't seem to be taking any real proactive actions to address the homeless figures.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843063#Comment_122843063

During the strong economic growth period, Dublin was the focus. Yet during this time DCC ended up with less units than they had in 2019. This was despite a huge amount of money provided to DCC.

Reducing units during a population growth set Ireland on the back foot for years. Throw in covid and building sites shut down. Plus as we have seen immigration and a war, inflation. we really have hit a bit of a mess for building houses.

If we had come out in 2019 with more units than we started with in 2014 at least we would be in some sort of a better position.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843264#Comment_122843264

Ireland will never have zero homelessness. I think Japan is the only country in the World to achieve that

We also have a system that people will prefer to stay homeless while waiting for their "forever home".

"The current government don't seem to be taking any real proactive actions to address the homeless figures."

Seriously have you not watched the news or seen a newspaper or media in the last 4 years? every day the discussion is about houses and more houses etc. We are building lots of houses, lots of people are buying houses, lots of people are taking old houses which used to be ruins and building them up. All of this is been done and we are still short of houses.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843378#Comment_122843378

Do the government build houses though? Or do they allow/facilitate/hope the market does it for them, and they take some as social housing?

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843435#Comment_122843435

It looks like you have been living under a rock if you are asking if he government build houses. So a bit pointless going further till you do some research on housing in Ireland

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122842556#Comment_122842556

Harris said they are heavily impacted by immigrants to be exact.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122842895#Comment_122842895

Can you explain why there were over 10,000 homeless people in Ireland in February 2022 before the Ukraine War started?

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843545#Comment_122843545

So yes what you posted was incorrect

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843264#Comment_122843264

Do you honestly think that the people who currently avail of government provided accommodation, most of them in Dublin, would be happy to move to these centres, or that the people who have opened their homes to Ukrainians fleeing a war would do the same for said people?

Correlating the Ukraine war with the 'homeless' figures is a red herring, the numbers as you correctly point out would have climbed regardless.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843545#Comment_122843545

The Ukraine war and Covid are handy excuses for failure.

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843638#Comment_122843638

or success if you’re showcasing how a European war zone influx of refugees can be housed in such a tiny country so handily

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843679#Comment_122843679

Well they certainly dined out on being best in EU on that (remember the pile-ons here if anyone questioned it) but are now moving away from that.
All anyone wanted was a fair application of the rules.
Meanwhile, as has been pointed out , homelessness existed before the Ukraine crisis and was being ignored/not dealt with then too.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843679#Comment_122843679

Is spending billions on hotel and b&b rooms really a success? Is spending a average of €400k per modular home really a success?

I mean, it's definitely a success if you own these hotels and b&bs or stocks in them, or if you own a company providing modular homes. Not sure it's a success for Joe taxpayer though.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843708#Comment_122843708

Maybe let's try to have a rational debate for once. No one 'ignored' homelessness, there is not a single child sleeping on the streets tonight.

You acknowledged the 'unique' drivers of the housing shortage in your own link. You then said it was simply a matter of having the 'will' to address them. Can you point to any lack of 'will' that was missed and would have solved the issue?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843783#Comment_122843783

For starters, it is completely irrational to suggest that the definition of homelessness is 'living on the streets'

Can you point to any lack of 'will' that was missed and would have solved the issue?

The lack of will to deliver adequate social housing is demonstratively proved.

Of course we are now being promised this can be addressed in the next 4 four years by the same people who didn't do it in the previous 4 years. Deja vu?

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843733#Comment_122843733

Ukrainians here were granted the same rights to accommodation ,social protection,healthcare etc etchere as our own without homes so let’s do the maths on the effect that had? Did we have any choice? Not really

We’ll soon end up having to pay other countries upkeep of them too

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843858#Comment_122843858

You still havent answer or explaind why there was over 10,000 people homeless before the war in Ukraine?

Also, it's important to clarify that Ukrainians are not granted the same rights as EU or Irish citizens. Ukrainians are not entitked to apply for social housing .

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843807#Comment_122843807

It's only irrational to those who have an axe to grind and choose to move the definition of homelessness from living on the streets to not having a forever home courtesy of the government.

As for the government not delivering enough social housing for said forever home expectees being simply due to a lack of 'will', you are being obtuse, and you're clearly smart enough to know that that is the fallacy being expuned by the opposition because they know their support will swallow it.

Don't have a forever home? Well seeing as you're never going to read the Irish Times which explains why the reason is because the current government don't have the will, we have the will so vote for us.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843952#Comment_122843952

Quite the reveal.

I do believe part of the lack of will is motivated by the belief in the same derogatory generalisations as you have just made.

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843889#Comment_122843889

Very good point.

Which side are you on again?🙂

standardg60

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122843968#Comment_122843968

No surprise that aspertions are cast on the poster when actual responses can't be found.

Anyhoo time for a ceasefire as there's rugby to be watched.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122844038#Comment_122844038

Were you making generalisations = yep.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122844076#Comment_122844076

The ultimate generalisation is to claim that there isn't the will to tackle the problem of homelessness.

The government did make plans, did make policy changes, did make policy interventions, built houses, put tax incentives in place, so whether or not you believe these were the correct measures or not (and you have shown zero ability to analyse and debate policy options in detail), saying that there isn't the will is just another generalised untruth. Nothing new there.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122844540#Comment_122844540

All parties in government currently are promising to sort the problems they created.
If they have the will or competence to do it, what have they been doing for a decade or more?
If the generalising poster is correct and people are gaming tge system that is also a government competence issue, they should fix it.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122844865#Comment_122844865

Out of curiosity, as SF (who you champion constantly) held the position of Minister for Communities in NI for a number of years (as part of the Assembly), how did they end homelessness?

Why are the Simon Community claiming that there are up to 80,000 homeless people including at least 4,500 children in NI?

The official homeless statistics for Northern Ireland currently stand at 55,500 people, including 4,500 children, but Simon Community warns that the true scale of the homelessness crisis is significantly under-reported. They estimate that there is a further 25,000 people who are currently experiencing “hidden” homelessness - people who are not engaging with the statutory bodies and are therefore invisible to the official system.

This means that the estimated number of people experiencing all forms of homelessness in Northern Ireland is actually closer to 80,000, and Simon Community warn this figure will grow unless drastic action is taken.

https://simoncommunity.org/about/news/true-scale-of-hidden-homelessness-crisis-facing-northern-ireland-revealed

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122848705#Comment_122848705

SF have put a policy before the electorate. Will it sort the issues?

I don’t know.

The question isn’t about SF though, it is about the parties of government.
What is it that convinces you that they have suddenly hit on solutions to problems they have had almost a full term to fix?

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122849705#Comment_122849705

I never suggested that the parties in government had hit on solutions. Nor am I suggesting that an opposition party could do a better job when the figures prove that they too have been a complete failure non the subject of homelessness when they held the responsibility to fix it.

If you're going to question the government's failures (and there are many) then make sure that the party you are constantly campaigning for hasn't made the same failures!

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122849779#Comment_122849779

The situations are not comparable and I didn’t suggest anything about the opposition.

I asked a very simple question. If you could stop the lecturing and just answer maybe?

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122849705#Comment_122849705

are these the same problems rooted in the great crash and flight of builders that Mary Lou herself suggested 2 years ago would take multiple terms to fix?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122849860#Comment_122849860

Anything but answer a direct question.

I’m finding it hilarious.

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122849873#Comment_122849873

Deflect deflect deflect