Dr. Rory Hearne:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend. We want to stress the devastating impact of the housing and homelessness crisis on the well-being, human rights and dignity of our most vulnerable citizens; homeless families and children. In particular, there is an urgent need for the State to move away from the private market approach to social housing delivery. We argue that the State should put the same effort it put into saving the financial system in 2008 into addressing one of the most serious social crises the nation has faced in many years.

The research for our report, Investing in the Right to a Home: Housing, HAPs and Hubs, was conducted as part of a European Union Horizon 2020 funded research project called RE-InVEST. This used a human rights capability, theoretical frameworks and participatory approach. In our report, which was launched in July, we stated that the homeless crisis is going to worsen significantly. Unfortunately, we have already been proven correct. There was a shocking increase of 153 new children made homeless in Dublin in July. The number of children who are homeless in Dublin has risen from 567 in June 2014 to 2,423 in July this year. This is a 327% increase in three years. At this rate of increase, we could see a situation where more than 6,000 children are homeless in Dublin by 2020.

Our research investigated the structural causes of the crisis of family homelessness. We found it to be the outcome of the shift away from local authorities directly building social housing to neoliberal policies that have marketised, privatised and financialised the delivery of social and private housing. This has shifted housing towards being a speculative commodity rather than a basic need and a human right. Austerity, in particular, dealt a devastating blow to the provision of social housing. In 1975, more than 7,000 local authority housing units were built in Ireland; in 2015, the figure was just 65. The delivery of social housing was shifted primarily to the private rental market in 2014 with the introduction of the housing assistance payment, HAP, a measure that was cemented in Rebuilding Ireland whereby private rented housing was to provide over 65% of all new social housing.

The housing rights of the most vulnerable have diminished over time as policy has shifted from traditional social housing building programmes to the greater use of private rental subsidies. Our research found that given the ease with which landlords can evict tenants from the private rental sector, the housing assistance payment fails to provide security of tenure and thus does not fulfil the right to housing of homeless families. We found that vulnerable homeless families suffer a structural exclusion from the private rental market because they cannot compete with professionals for the limited available property. They suffer a double discrimination from landlords as homeless families and as single mothers. The families we worked with were putting huge effort into trying to find private rented accommodation. This rejection, and their failure to compete, results in severe socio-emotional impacts on the mental health of the parents. They feel they are responsible for failing to provide a home for their children. This approach puts the responsibility for the homelessness crisis onto the families and thus exacerbates their feelings of social exclusion, shame and failure.

In addition, from a cost perspective, we found that direct social housing presents a far greater return than the housing assistance payment approach and State investment. Over a 30 year lifetime, the HAP system will be €23 billion more expensive than local authority provision. International research shows that countries such as Denmark and Austria that provide a high level of state and non-market social and affordable rental housing, meet the housing needs of their populations much better than countries like Ireland where just 9% of the housing stock is social housing. In Austria, for example, 24% of the housing stock is social housing. Given the lack of supply in the private housing market, which is going to remain the case for a number of years to come, the only scenario we can see is a dramatic worsening of the housing and homelessness crisis, unless the State draws on international best practice on housing provision and provides an emergency State-building programme.

Our research has put forward five recommendations. We feel that the State is failing these families and their children. All the evidence points to a lack of institutional willingness to turn the State's resources towards meet basic housing needs of our most vulnerable. We propose an increase in capital funding for local authorities, the redirection of the use of State-owned land for emergency building rather than marketing it to developers and the establishment of a semi-State affordable homes company. Local authorities should have the obligation to source HAP accommodation for homeless families and to rehouse families if they lose their rented accommodation. We also feel there needs to be an amendment to the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act in order that it will become more difficult for landlords to evict tenants.

I shall now hand over to my colleague and co-author of the report, Dr. Mary Murphy, to speak about hubs and the human right to housing.