Looking back it is hard to believe that they lasted the full fourteen months. When the call came from the Council with an allocation in Una’s old estate it was like a million Christmases came at once. The joy in the children’s eyes was indescribable.
They have moved in now and their routine is back to normal. But Una can see the difference in the family. The youngest one is more introverted. The eldest more bold. And Sean, well he doesn’t say much but he still hasn’t gotten over the shame of it all.
Laura
Laura and her young twins live in the box bedroom of her mother’s Council house. To be honest, box is an overstatement. Between her bed, the bunk-beds for the girls and all the kids’ things there is literally no space to move.
Her mam and dad have the main bedroom. Her sister has the other bedroom. And her brother sleeps on the couch. Laura doesn’t recall the house feeling so cramped when she was growing up.
She remembers when the babies were born. Their father was so happy. He promised he would have the deposit for a flat saved in a few months and that Laura could decorate it whatever way she wanted. They knew it would be a long wait for a Council house but that didn’t matter. His job wasn’t bad and the prospect of more hours was good.
The babies were just 18 months old when the crash happened. They never caught the driver of the car that caused the accident but the CCTV clearly showed they were drunk, careering down the wrong side of the road. The damage from the crash was so bad Laura never got to see his body.
She cried for a month. Only the twins kept her going. Sure she had to hold it together for them. But now the girls were six. Six long years trapped in the box bedroom.
Laura has been to every TD and Councillor and they all tell her the same thing. The waiting time for a two bedroom is eleven years long. Without medical or homeless priority she just has to wait it out. The idea of another five years cooped up in the box bedroom is hard to face.
The damp started to appear after the girls turned four. Big black patches in the corners and around the window sills. Laura is convinced it is making the girls’ asthma worse. The Council say it’s condensation and she should open the windows more often. Are they serious? It’s cold enough in here what with the old rotten wooden window frames. She’s not sure which is worse, the damp musty smell of the mould or the sharp stink of bleach that hangs in the room for days after the weekly clean.
Five more years. The girls will be eleven before they have a place they can call home. But then at least she’s not stuck in some grotty BnB in the city centre. The girl across the road was almost two years homeless. At least she has her family and friends around her. But still … five more years …
John
John was employed all his life with the Corporation. He was an honest and hard-working man. He and his wife bought the family home in the 1970s. A beautiful semi-detached house in one of the new private estates. The kids were born. Wages were good. He was happy. Until the drink took hold.
He doesn’t remember how long it took but the marriage eventually broke down. He left the house and got digs in the city centre. Eventually he dried out and got his life back together. But too late to patch things up at home. That part of his life was gone forever.
He managed to keep his job. Sober for ten years, he secured a promotion and life went on. His landlord was a decent man. Charged a fair rent, kept the flat in good order, never intruded.
But now John is retired, his pension is small and the landlord is selling up. He couldn’t believe it when he saw what the market rents were for a small one bedroom flat, €1,200 a month! The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) would cover just half that. His pension brings in €897.43 a month. So after rent he would be left with just €297 a month to live on. Impossible!
The Council might be able to offer him something but not for a few years. What will he do until then? At his age he couldn’t face a hostel full of drug users. Nothing wrong with them mind you, but not at his age. Maybe he’ll find a bedsit in the city centre. They were banned a few years back but he’s heard there are still a few on offer. The prospect of an outside toilet up a flight of stairs at his age and with his enlarged prostate gland is pretty daunting.
John has six months before his Notice to Quit comes up. Something will come up. Maybe his landlord will change his mind. But to be honest at 70 years of age he never thought he would be facing this.
Other real people
These are not fictional stories. They are real cases from my constituency clinic. And there are thousands more.
I could tell you about the student who may have to leave college midway through his degree in business management because the rent is so high after a 17 percent increase, the third such hike in three years. Even with his part-time job he can’t manage. He could commute but the five-hour round trip every day would have a real impact on his studies. Maybe he should just pack it in and get a job. The local supermarket in his home village is looking for full-time staff. Who knows, after a few months there might even be a supervisor’s role.
Then there is the young graduate, working hard in her first job having to choose between paying for rent, fuel or food as payday approaches. A while back the cooker broke but the landlord took a month to fix it. Living on takeaways for four weeks straight is no joke. She could have taken him to the Residential Tenancies Board but flats are so scarce these days she didn’t want to risk being hit with a Notice to Quit.
Or the working couple in their thirties desperate to save a deposit to buy their own home, forced to live apart because there isn’t enough space in either of their parents’ houses for both of them. When there are young children involved the separation is even more painful. And because house prices are so damn high, even when they have the deposit securing the mortgage is not guaranteed. They could always look for somewhere outside the city. What a choice; never-ending commutes or impossible mortgage payments.
I could take you to Traveller halting sites where families are living in Dickensian conditions which should have been eradicated in the nineteenth century. I could introduce you to families with special needs children living in accommodation that is so unsuitable it is actively holding back their physical and emotional development. I could bring you to Direct Provision centres where families who have secured their legal right to remain in the country are trapped in their hotel room for years because they cannot secure private rental accommodation.
These are the human faces of our dysfunctional housing system. They are people who are doing everything right. They get up early in the morning. They work hard. They care for their children. They respect their neighbours. All they want is the chance to have a place to call home. But our housing system is so bad, abnormal and difficult they simply can’t access secure and affordable accommodation.
In the pages that follow there will be a lot of facts and statistics. But behind every single number stands Una and Sean and their five children, Laura and her twins, John, struggling students, hard pressed renters, delayed first-time buyers, those living on the absolute fringes of our housing system and tens of thousands like them. Victims of a housing system that is abnormal, impaired and disruptive of normal social relations.
A Dysfunctional System
Why is our housing system like this? Was it always this way? What decisions were made, or not made, and by whom, that resulted in such dysfunction? Does it have to be this way? What alternatives are there? How much would they cost? How long would they take to implement? What do we have to do to get those in power to listen and act? Do we have to take power ourselves to make the necessary changes?
These are the questions that I will try to answer in the pages that follow. In asking and hopefully answering them I am trying to achieve a number of things. Firstly, to fully understand why we are where we are today. Secondly, to describe what a functional housing system could look like. And thirdly to set out a plan of action for all those who believe, as I do, that change can only