In the final instalment of our five-day series on homelessness in Cork, Kelly O’Brien speaks to Housing Minister Simon Coveney about the current crisis and his plans to alleviate the situation.
Simon Coveney speaking to the press at St. Joachim and St. Anne’s, Anglesea Street, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan
EVERY time Simon Coveney sees a homeless person sleeping rough, it is “a sobering experience” that reminds him of the mammoth task ahead.
As the new Housing Minister, he said he feels directly responsible for the welfare of those forced to live on the streets and is acutely aware that action needs to be taken, as soon as possible.
“When I see somebody sleeping rough and I’m walking past them or driving past them, I am very conscious that I’m the person who has the primary responsibility in terms of trying to help them,” he said.
“My job is to find solutions to homelessness and to housing problems in Ireland. I am conscious of the fact that many people who find themselves in a very vulnerable situation, some cases in the extreme situation of having to sleep rough on the streets, that it’s my responsibility to respond to that and make sure they get the supports they need from the state. That’s really what is driving me in relation to the response to homelessness,” he said.
“I don’t need motivation in my job, I’ll tell you that.”
Minister Coveney, a representative of the Cork South Central constituency, said he has always felt very passionate about helping the homeless which is why, after the last election, he asked Taoiseach Enda Kenny if he could directly take on the task of sorting out the housing and homelessness crisis.
“It’s something I feel very strongly about, and always have done, but that I wasn’t directly involved in as the Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Defence,” he said.
“The Taoiseach gave me a choice in terms of ministries, not all of them, but a couple of them, and housing was the one I wanted. It’s something I wanted to get involved in and try to solve.”
Simon Coveney speaking at the launch of Cork Simon Community’s annual report. Picture: Clare Keogh
What’s needed now, he said, is action.
“I’ve given lots of speeches talking about the need to respond as a Government, talking about the human stories that many people are suffering and the vulnerabilities that homelessness exposes. But making speeches doesn’t house anybody. So I’m conscious of the fact that we really need to deliver now – to respond with practical measures that make a real impact.”
He said the current Government may last one, two, maybe three years, but doesn’t think it will last much longer than that. As such, he has given himself an upper limit of three years to solve the housing and homelessness crisis. The minister will reveal an Action Plan on housing within the next three weeks.
“I’m looking forward to launching that and then being relentless in terms of trying to deliver it,” he said.
“It will be a strategy that will change as we go along. All of the solutions aren’t going to be there on day one but we’re going to try and do as much of it as we can.”
Minister Coveney said, at a very basic level, the solution is to build more houses and make more vacant properties available again. It is also integral, he said, that those who are homeless and vulnerable are prioritised in terms of accessing properties that come on stream.
“The answer to all of these problems is to get some kind of a normalised housing market where supply meets demand, which it doesn’t at the moment. And that means building in and around 25,000 housing units a year, a big portion of that being social housing to support people who are currently on housing lists,” he outlined.
“We are going to have a very significant social housing build programme over the next five years but I want to ensure we’re not building social housing estates on one side of the city and all of our private housing on another side. We need proper integration in terms of communities and I think that will deal with some of the prejudice, quite frankly, that’s there amongst some landlords who, it seems, are looking for private tenants instead of tenants that are getting supported through either a HAP scheme or a rent supplement scheme.”
Vacant houses boarded up with strong steel security shutters in Ballinderry Park, Mayfield, off the North Ring Road. Picture: Larry Cummins
The minister said he finds it incredibly frustrating to see a house boarded up and wants to reduce the percentage of vacant properties, also known as voids, to 1%.
“There’s nothing more annoying and frustrating than driving past a house that could be used by a family and it’s boarded up waiting for someone to actually do the work that is necessary there,” he said.
“So we’ve put more pressure on local authorities to do more in this area and they are doing more, to be fair.
“The number of voids in Cork has dramatically reduced in the last 18 months or so but we need to keep that trend going now to make sure we get the percentage below the target of 1%.”
To do that, he said, a new mindset is needed. “We need to ensure projects in the pipeline happen an awful lot quicker. We need to see a dramatic increase in housing stock in as short a time as we can make it. That means my department changing in terms of approval processes and signing off on everything from design to procurement to costings and so on but it also means a real intensity and urgency within City Hall to move projects through the system fast,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean cutting corners, it just means urgency. It means me sending down teams that can sign off on projects that otherwise might take two or three or six months in terms of to-ing and fro-ing with emails and so on. So my job is to pump real adrenaline into the system to start delivering at a pace that we haven’t been delivering.”
If those changes are made, Minister Coveney said Cork can lead the way in terms of eradicating homelessness nationwide.
“We have an average of 10 to 12 people sleeping rough in Cork every night. We should, as a city, be able to address that,” he said.
“Cork can be a city that really shows what’s possible and, if it’s done right, can pave the way for the rest of the country.”
Homeless in Cork: Getting people off the streets https://t.co/iRSqAJRNVC pic.twitter.com/qQz6X3yCCM
— Evening Echo (@CorkEveningEcho) July 7, 2016
Homelessness can happen to any one of us
Homelessness can happen to anybody, and it can happen quickly, says Housing Minister, Simon Coveney.
Speaking at the launch of Cork Simon’s annual report, the Minister spoke of a cautionary conversation he had with a young woman who suddenly had no place to live.
The woman had been working at a multi-national. When Taoiseach Enda Kenny visited the company to announce more jobs there, the young woman was one of the employees who shook his hand.
A few months later, she was homeless. Following a period of sick leave, she lost her job, couldn’t afford her rent, and ended up in emergency accommodation.
“It was a real reminder of just how close homelessness can be to virtually anybody,” said Minister Coveney.
“For some people, it’s two or three pay cheques away. For other people, it is linked to addiction, it’s linked to mental health, it’s linked to family break down, or a range of other complex issues that people find themselves victim to.”
The Minister said that when a country goes through a recession, especially one caused by a collapse in the construction industry, the pressures of homelessness are multiplied tenfold.
He said anybody, from any background, could potentially be affected — a fact that many people forget.
“All of a sudden, things start to unravel. Money becomes an issue, maybe a relationship breaks down, you lose your job, you can’t get access to rental accommodation, you suddenly find you have serious mental health issues that you maybe could manage in the past, but can’t any more.
“You’ve turned to addiction… and, all of a sudden, what was a relatively normal life a year ago becomes a nightmare and a very, very vulnerable position,” he said.
“Sometimes, I think when you speak to people who are either in a shelter or on the streets, often, not too long ago, they were in a similar position to people who, at the moment, may consider themselves to be almost immune from ever being homeless.”
Minister Coveney said that hearing personal stories of homelessness is tough, but it is motivating him to make real change.
“It’s a real, sobering experience for me, meeting more and more people who are homeless and hearing their stories.
“When you’re the minister with responsibility for this situation, it’s different. If you don’t deliver, you can see very directly the consequences,” he said.
“As a government, we’re determined to improve the outcomes for people who are in those really difficult situations.”
Homeless in Cork: Son inspired heroin addict to turn her life around https://t.co/21Q2l41HAd pic.twitter.com/McKVHs1SbC
— Evening Echo (@CorkEveningEcho) July 6, 2016
Minister: Rent allowance increase “couldn’t wait”
In advance of the launch of the Government’s Action Plan for Housing, Minister Simon Coveney announced an immediate increase in rent supports.
He did so ahead of the action plan, he said, because the increase “couldn’t wait”.
People in Cork will receive up to 21% more to cope with the rising cost of accommodation.
The hike will cost the Government €15m this year — €12m under the rent-supplement scheme and €3m through the Housing Asssistance Payment scheme.
“As Minister for Housing, I am determined to tackle the housing crisis that Ireland is currently experiencing. This requires a range of measures from all sectors involved, both short- and long-term,” said the Minister.
“I’m confident that the new limits will help alleviate the pressure experienced by families in the private, rented sector, while other, longer-term housing measures are put in place. They will help households to remain in their existing homes, while also providing sufficient flexibility to enable people to source accommodation in a constrained rental market.”
Housing charities welcomed the news, but said more needs to be done.
Niall Horgan, from Threshold, in Cork, called it “a step in the right direction”.
“That increase will help a number of people and give them a fairer chance of securing a property and holding onto it,” he said.
“But the Government can’t now sit back and say they sorted the rent-supplement problem. What if the market rents continue to rise? Will there be adjustments to the rent supplement on an ongoing basis? What we are calling for is for rent supplement to be increased to match market rents, and for a mechanism to be put in place to regulate market rents.”
Meanwhile, Focus Ireland also welcomed the increase in rent supplement, but said it was just a short-term solution.
“Two to three families are becoming homeless every single day and increasing rent supplement will help stem the flow of people entering homelessness, while we wait for the long-term solution to kick in,” said director of advocacy, Mike Allen.
“This is a very positive step. However, it is important to highlight that this is just one short-term solution to help tackle the crisis and is not the full solution. Increasing rent supplement has to be part of an overall package to address the crisis.”
Homelessness in Cork: Three people tell their stories https://t.co/oB9KiEZ9uk pic.twitter.com/sHzPRUHCUU
— Evening Echo (@CorkEveningEcho) July 5, 2016
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