Mr. Wayne Stanley:

I thank the committee for the invitation. As members of the committee are aware, the second half of 2021 saw an alarming trend of increasing homelessness. The housing situation of too many people is insecure, due to rising rents in an already unaffordable private rental market and the impact of the growing cost of living, so the committee's reflection on where we are with homelessness framed through the April 2021 report, is both timely and welcome. In reviewing the progress made on the 17 recommendations made in the committee's report, we are conscious that Housing for All has since been launched. The commitments in Housing for All mirror many of the recommendations outlined in the committee’s report. We have acknowledged that in our submission to the committee, which members hopefully received. In the submission, we have responded to each of the 17 recommendations. I do not intend to go through all 17 of them.

I particularly welcome the commitment in the Housing for All plan to work towards ending homelessness by 2030. The ambition of the plan for the 2030 target builds on the successful collaborations that happened as we worked to ensure those experiencing homelessness were protected during the pandemic. The ongoing commitment to Housing First and to the strengthening of integrated care pathways, and case management for people experiencing homelessness is equally welcome. The development, enhancement and successful implementation of these recommendations over the coming months will be critically important.

Areas that we want to raise which are pertinent to the recommendation of the committee, which need a particular focus, include homelessness prevention. We need a greater focus on homelessness prevention. Emergency accommodation is a vital service required to meet people’s immediate and urgent need for accommodation, but it is possible to stop homelessness from happening before it starts. The moratorium on evictions is a prime example of a homelessness prevention measure that successfully reduced family homelessness in Ireland, or at least significantly contributed to it. Increased funding and planning are required to implement nationwide homelessness prevention measures post Covid. State interventions and prevention strategies need to be prioritised if we are to eradicate homelessness in Ireland. Committee members will be aware that, as part of our work in this area, we developed the Simon homeless prevention Bill, which has received significant cross-party support. We hope the committee will be involved in seeing that implemented in the coming months.

As set out in our submission, the Simon Communities of Ireland welcome the continued commitment to Housing First in Housing for All. However, we believe that that there is both the need and scope for greater ambition in the west and south west in particular. They are areas where Housing First has been successful, but we feel that there could be more ambition, particularly in those areas. In the longer term, we would like to see Housing First be the foundation of a strategy for how we respond to homelessness and housing-led solutions.

The committee will be well aware that HAP rates and discretion of local authorities is an issue that the Simon Communities of Ireland has been focused on for some time. Our Locked Out of the Market report found very low levels of rental accommodation available, even when discretion is used to its maximum. There needs to be greater discretion for local authorities to support people to get out of homelessness and to prevent people from getting into homelessness. It has worked well in the Dublin region in particular. I think Ms Mary Hayes just highlighted that. One thing that we and others around the table are seeing is that the level of topping up is endemic. Combined with the inflation for staples such as bread and milk, people are being forced into homelessness. That is a whistle-stop tour of our report. If members are interested in any individual recommendations, I am happy to answer questions.