SEVERAL Northside areas are amongst the most badly affected by the homeless crisis with Dublin 15 the biggest casualty, according to Focus Ireland
?¯Director of Advocacy, Mike Allen.
The latest statistics from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive show that there were 888 families recognised as homeless for the month of April, with 670 families placed in emergency hotel accommodation.
A further 218 families were moved to homeless accommodation units across the city.
Focus Ireland has analysed the figures and found Northside families are among the most badly affected by the crisis.
Local suburbs like Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart, Tyrrelstown, Coolmine and Clonsilla, along with Cabra and Finglas are among the capital’s most badly hit locations.
“We did an analysis of where children went to school because the parents tend to keep kids in the same school they were in before they became homeless, and what we found was that the largest single area of concentration was coming from Dublin 15,” Allen told the Northside People.
“Below that you had areas like Tallaght but what you actually begin to see is that they tend to be coming from areas with a high concentration of private rental accommodation.
“What we know is that virtually all of the families that are becoming homeless had their last secure home in the private rental sector and virtually all of them at that time were recipients of rental supplements.
“Where there is lots of private rental accommodation, that’s where people are losing their homes and that’s West Dublin.”
Under the current rental supplement limits, which were made effective in June 2013, the maximum allowance for a family with three children, in receipt of rent supplement, is €1,000 per month in Dublin and €950 in Fingal.
The latest Daft.ie rental report shows a six per cent annual rental increase for properties in North County Dublin from an average rent price of €1,156 in Q1 of 2015 to €1,225 in Q1 of 2016.
Furthermore, the Q1 2016 figure of €1,225 is up 26 per cent from what the average price of North County Dublin properties were when the rent supplement limits were last revised in 2013. The average price of property back then was €972 per month.
Meanwhile Northside city properties remain among the most expensive to rent in the country, with the average rent of an inner city home on the Northside costing €1,365 per month, up 5.6 per cent from Q1 of 2015 and 28 per cent from when rent supplement limits were last revised.
Allen also added that Focus Ireland and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive are doing everything within their powers to remove families from emergency accommodation and place them into more permanent, suitable accommodation but need more help from the Government to end the crisis.
“If you are to criticise what’s happening you wouldn’t be pointing your finger at the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, you’d be pointing your finger at the failure of national Government policy,” Allen added.
“The failure to put in proper homelessness protection measures, to build more social housing, regulate rents and all those sort of factors.
“There’s only a limited extent to which a local authority can deal with the crisis, they can’t actually deal with the underlying causes, and it’s the national Government that’s the real issue there.”
REPORT: Jack O’Toole