Ms Suzy Byrne:

NAS has a lot of experience in supporting people in the area of homelessness. There are people who acquire a disability and become homeless - possibly because of a brain injury or a mental health difficulty. From 2015 and 2016 onwards in particular, people with intellectual disabilities or autism in homeless services became known to us. This was new for homeless services. The numbers were definitely on the increase. One of the difficulties is the fact that the criteria for receiving support as a disabled person operated by the HSE state that somebody must have a moderate or profound intellectual disability before he or she can be supported through HSE-funded services, so people in homeless services who might be identified as having a mild intellectual disability are unable to get and sustain their own tenancies and as a result, are staying in quite acute homeless services with populations of people who might cause them great distress in terms of not having quiet spaces, staff who are skilled in how to support them and all the rights restrictions such as not having funds or access to appropriate therapeutic supports. All those things were coming to bear in respect of the inquiries received by NAS. Homeless agencies were saying they did not know what to do. Disability services are seeing people to whom they might traditionally have provided residential support but who are now in homeless agencies, living in emergency accommodation and less likely to get private or even public rented accommodation.

Regarding private landlords, this is not just about physical access in private tenancies, which is a significant issue involving as it does finding somewhere that is physically accessible. While many landlords might agree to adaptations being done temporarily, they are looking for money to put the property back to the way it was before the tenancy began.

We are also seeing congregated settings moving people into private tenancies because of the lack of public housing. In the Time to Move On from Congregated Settings reports and the plans concerning decongregation, the agencies in disability services were looking to private landlords to support people to move into properties but this offered no security of tenure. That involved year-to-year tenancies, the fact rents might increase and whether people were entitled to HAP and getting it and all that joined-up thinking. People were moving from what they or other people might have regarded as secure accommodation albeit that they had no choice, their rights were restricted and they were living in unsuitable and inappropriate places. They were moving to private tenancies where they may have had a notice to quit given to them. There was also the question of whether their supports would be able to find them somewhere else to move to. If they took a HAP tenancy, they might only be entitled to a transfer to public housing rather than remaining on the housing list for something that might be more suitable and of high quality and a long-term tenancy nature. All these issues were coming up.

Each year in its service plan, the HSE announces a number of people it thinks it will be able to support to move from congregated settings to the community. The target in 2021 was 144 but it was not reached. I think the number was 135. I do not have the figure to hand but based on those figures, people were more likely to die in congregated setting than to move out, which is quite stark. The numbers of people to move out of congregated settings being set are so low but they are not even being reached and many people are passing away without the opportunity to move on into their lives of their own choosing.