Charity helps 589 in Cork to avoid homelessness over first three months of the year

Housing charity Threshold helped to prevent 337 adults and 252 children in Cork from being made homeless in the first three months of this year.

In January, February, and March 2024, Threshold supported 1,726 households, including 2,286 adults and 1,587 children, in Cork.

They worked with 1,008 households across Cork city and county who were at risk of homelessness, and prevented 228 households from entering homelessness.

The charity, which released its Quarterly Impact Report yesterday, shared its Cork statistics exclusively with The Echo. Of the renters it helped in Cork city and county during this period, 46% of these needed assistance with tenancy termination and 10% with housing standards or repairs of their rental properties.

Smaller percentages of renters required assistance with accessing social housing, deposit retention, rent reviews or increases, arrears, and landlord or agent breaches.

Reasons

Threshold also shared the reasons landlords gave for terminating a tenancy in Q1, which showed 66% said they were planning to sell the property, and in 14% cases, the landlord said he/she or a family member were moving in.

In 4% of the cases, the landlord cited section 34(b), which enables a landlord to give notice with no reason, while the remaining reasons: rent arrears, to carry out renovations, a tenant breach, or that the property was no longer suitable, were reported in 3% or less of all cases.

Thirty-four of the households Threshold worked with in Cork city and county had rent arrears, with rent affordability being the cause in 38% of cases, followed by payment delays (18%), reduction in earnings (15%), and change in household circumstances (9%).

Nationally, Threshold prevented more than 900 households from entering homelessness, including 1,235 adults and 983 children, and supported more than 9,300 households during the period.

Advisors answered 11,572 calls and responded to over 1,600 webchats from across Ireland, with tenancy termination the biggest issue, representing 37% of all queries received.

Concerns

Threshold CEO John-Mark McCafferty said: “We are continuing to see a high number of households in the private rental sector have concerns over the security of tenancy, with termination queries topping the list of questions that Threshold received in Q1 of this year.

“Threshold kept 900 households, who were at risk of homelessness, in their homes or supported them to find alternative housing.

“This figure alone highlights the impact of our work in supporting renters to stay in their homes, and we strongly urge anyone who is facing challenges in their tenancy to contact our advisors for support.”