End to homelessness group on Facebook

I worked frontline local authority housing for several years- during the boom and during the worst of the downturn.

in the county i was in, the housing list ran at about 1000 in that time, if i recall correctly.

this number was split down fairly predictable lines

- single people (mainly pissheads) only on the list to continue to be eligible for the rent supplement
- low income/no income families, usually one parent a carer for the other, or travellers
- single mothers who were usually known to be with the daddy but happy to pretend the children were immaculately conceived

the proportion of the people i met working or studying was maybe one in five or thereabouts.

the proportion down as unfit to work but either through a fondness for drink or because they had a doctor who wasn't bothered arguing it with them, one in three or thereabouts

the proportion simply not working and never gonna look, about half

this was at full employment.

tbf it changed a bit as things worsened, but when i hear people speculate that the majority of people 'homeless' or on the long-term housing list waiting for their number to come up are somehow trapped in a situation that we should all be helping them out of, i can only say that my experience is that most of em really do just want a free forever house and are shameless about it, and a lot of the rest dont care too much as long as someone is paying their rent and bills so they never have to lift their arse bar to fart

all that said, i do think that the only thing that the government can do is large scale capital intervention- building huge amounts of homes to standard, well serviced by public transport.

i dont agree, from the above professional experience and through lived experience, that mixed housing is any ideal to aim for.

the actual homeless -rough sleepers- have mental health or addiction needs and we really need to draw the line there and not pretend that accommodation is their primary route to being off the streets.

housing for the never-works should be separate for a whole host of reasons, but you could accurately guess all of them if you hadnt a halo put on the occupants.

why this should be in city centre locations is beyond me. when somebody contributes nothing to the state, they shouldnt be first in any priority queues.

housing for people who are working but at a lower income, no problem having that in mixed areas, but either the qualifying eligibility bands for this should be relaxed hugely or the government should be providing local authority mortgages or a deposit guarantee.

as pointed out above, the amount it would cost to service a bond raised for the above purpose is well within budget when set against the money it takes to provide rented/emergency accommodation as is.

thats not the issue.

building a large amount of houses is a non-runner because it would take precisely this dead-weight cash out of the pockets of landlords or agents, all of whom vote and/or contribute to party funds.

building large amounts of housing would meet demand. house prices for existing stock would fall to sane levels. thats another huge tranche of votes ****ed- probably half the country own property and see it as their right to make a killing on it once they have the mortgage paid, or sell up, or rent it out and move to benidorm- whatever.

the banks, jesus. can you imagine what would happen our entire system, again, if the government actually started to bring down house prices, again? midnight calls to the ministers, i reckon.

the irish will take three generations to start to see housing as a service and not an investment. its probably due to what the brits done us us, i dunno.

the underlying causes of our current situation are intimately tied at each level of our society to the type of callow fecklessness and indigence, greed and mendacity, cute-hoorism and short-termism that defines us as a nation.

tis our land, tadhg. tis our land.

1. eradicate the idea of a forever home from social housing. its thatcherite, toxic and counterproductive
2. eradicate the hope-for-the-best-in-people ideolism of mixed housing. social housing shouldnt be the match of what people work hard to get and shouldnt be in better locations than what working families can afford.
3. destroy the concept of property as a retirement investment. huge non-occupancy taxes. cripple land bankers so that their grandchildren wince. income from non-primary residence taxed at double the current rate. have some extra money? want a return on it? go talk to geico, we have a property crisis here and your demand isnt welcome.
4. rigid enforcement of building and planning standards, but the latter to be reworked totally to eradicate the ability of 'concerned citizens', or groups such as an taisce, to object or block to anything that has passed those standards. double the height of the dublin skyline.

now, who wants to see the majority of the above happen? very few people, in reality.

fixing housing would break the country. thats why it wont happen.

well thats very flattering

i think once you take a course of action that solves the housing problems of maybe- throwing figure at a wall here, 20% - of the actively voting electorate, and do so by hitting the actual, anticipated or hoped-for asset value of the other 80% you can see why the housing crisis actually suits the majority if people who matter

thats not to even get into the proportion of tds who own their own homes, own multiple homes, hold stock in various ways in companies and industries that rely on property prices rising or holding, or rely on money from vested interests with that goal at individual or party level to remain in office

the noise about homelessness (really, the accommodation crisis, if you will) is not going to solve anything because the government that even tried to do so gets decimated for a generation.

its simple politics!

Always Tired wrote: »

I think we should all boycott the protest and make it clear to the government that we are totally fine with Ireland becoming like every American city where you just step over the homeless lying on the streets and continue on your day.

dramatic much?

rough sleepers aren't suffering through homelessness and our issues on this score simply do not even begin to approach the scale faced in most cities in the states

if these cases are your concern youd be better off correcting anyone trying to lump them in with those seeking their accommodation needs met by the state, and certainly you ought to be correcting the "10000 homeless" nonsense at every opportunity