Housing expert says Laois housing targets are 'nonsense'

A housing expert believes the real housing needs in Laois are massively underestimated in official figures.

Associate Professor and author of the best-selling book on Ireland’s housing situation, Gaffs, Rory Hearne said an entire generation is trapped and locked out of the housing market.  He outlined some of the figures for Laois. 

“The generation stuck at home. In Laois there are 9,793 people, that’s 10,000 people who are adults over 18 living at home with their parents. They are not counted anywhere in terms of housing needs. This is a big issue of mine. The targets are nonsense because they don't actually include the real level of housing needs,” Mr Hearne said.   

“If you look at the number of people on the housing waiting list in Laois it is 1,500 people. All those adults living at  home are in need of affordable housing. They are not living at home by choice. They are living at home because they cannot find somewhere to rent or to buy and yet the social housing waiting list, which is what they base the level of how much social and affordable housing needs to be built on, is only a fraction of that 1,589. Of course you are not going to be meeting your need if your local authority plan is based on this smaller level of need,” he pointed out. 

According to Mr Hearne, it is not just the people who are living at home that are left off the lists. 

“Another figure which are not included in housing needs are those in receipt of HAP, the Housing Assistance Payment. In Laois we have 1,000 households in receipt of HAP. They aren’t on the social housing waiting list, government changed policy in 2014 where they took people on HAP off the housing waiting list. So there is 1,000 households in Laois who are in private rental, being supported in their rent. They are entitled to social housing, they need social housing but yet they are in a completely insecure form of housing. They can be evicted.” 

In Laois in the last 18 months alone 466 rental households evicted in Laois, that’s “phenomenal numbers,” he said.  

 The Associate Professor, whose mother Mary Bates is from Clonaslee,  is the Social Democrats Midlands-North West candidate for the European Elections.   

“One of the things I am putting central to my campaign. Because the government overly focused on the market and investor funds in the last 10 years in their housing policy. They basically relied on them to buy all their housing and they haven’t developed the capacity to deliver social housing where investor funds aren’t building housing,” Mr Hearne said.  

He said in counties where investors aren’t building, very few homes are being delivered. 

It has been a completely flawed strategy for building social housing in regional areas and in areas outside cities. 

He believes a regional approach is needed to pool together resources on housing delivery skills across local authorities. He said there is a role for not for profit housing bodies and fast build factory housing should be considered. He also wants to see more done to tackle dereliction and vacancy.  

“I do think we need a national building agency to coordinate that. So that would really focus on how we develop our public capacity to deliver the homes,” he said. 

Mr Hearne said it will take investment and a few years but will ramp up the delivery of housing in the country.

“I have seen the massive mental health damage of the housing crisis to  younger generations, and it’s not just younger people, it’s 30s, 40s and 50s, who are in different forms trapped,” he remarked. 

“I really don’t feel that our government or State is taking it seriously yet and I just want to give people hope that we can solve it and that there are people who really care about this and want to put this as their number one priority,” said Mr Hearne.