Budget 2025: Government urged to 'give those people who have nowhere to call home a reason to hope'

Two weeks ago, the head of Cork’s leading homeless charity told The Echo that the issue of homelessness has never been as severe in our city as it is right now.

Speaking at the launch of Cork Simon’s annual impact report for 2023, Cork Simon chief executive Dermot Kavanagh said the past year had been the most challenging the charity had ever experienced, supporting more people now than ever before.

The number of people turning to Cork Simon was up by 9% in a year to 1,498 people, with the charity supporting 75 people a night in emergency accommodation in 2023, compared to 64 per night in 2022.

The charity’s outreach team met 577 men and women sleeping rough in 2023, which represented a 39% increase compared to 2022. In simpler terms, there were, on average, 30 people sleeping rough on the streets of Cork every night last year.

In their pre-budget submission, the Simon Communities have called for increased investment in social housing, homeless prevention and health supports for people doing all they can to exit homelessness.

“Addressing the supply of housing is fundamental to addressing the current homelessness crisis,” Cork Simon head of campaigns and communications Paul Sheehan said.

“The Simon Communities believe capital funding must be increased to support the delivery of 12,500 social homes next year and 15,000 social homes in 2026.

“An additional 3,100 dwellings could be brought back into use with an increase in capital spending for the Repair and Lease Scheme.”

He added that the charity believed that, as a homelessness prevention measure, an increase to Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) was needed to reflect market rents and maintain the current level of tenancies.

“The 2023 spend on homeless prevention should be doubled with a commitment to increase this funding annually until it accounts for 20% of the total budget on homeless services,” Mr Sheehan said.

Describing the experience of homelessness as “effectively a trauma on top of a trauma”, he said homelessness can have a detrimental effect on people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing, and additional funding was required to address those health needs for people already stuck in homelessness.

“Budget 2025 must acknowledge the record numbers of men, women, and children stuck in emergency accommodation.

“It must include a suite of measures to address a homelessness crisis that continues to worsen month after month,” he said.

“Budget 2025 is an opportunity to give those people who have nowhere to call home a reason to hope that they no longer have to put their lives on hold.

“Without a significant change in approach to tackling homelessness the crisis can only continue to worsen.”

Budget for 'homelessness prevention'

National housing charity Threshold operates advice centres in Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick, and it also offers a national freephone helpline.

Founded in 1978, it is the only specialist advice and advocacy service for tenants in Ireland, and each year, Threshold supports approximately 20,000 households living in the private rental sector. In its pre-budget submission, Threshold made a number of costed recommendations to Government, stating that “private rental accommodation is not just a temporary shelter ... for many people, it is home and so, it behoves Government to implement these proposals in Budget 2025”.

Threshold’s recommendations include a call for an increase in investment in cost-rental developments. The charity is also calling for a scaling-up of the Tenant-in Situ and the Cost-Rental Tenant in Situ schemes, which it has costed at €1.7bn.

Threshold is also calling on the Government to allocate a budget specifically for homelessness prevention, amounting to 20% of all homelessness expenditure, with an accompanying, evidence-informed, homeless prevention plan. The charity has costed this measure at €48.5m.

It is calling for the investment of €20m in a Rent Arrears Scheme to help private renters remain in their homes if they experience financial difficulties.

Like the Simon Communities, Threshold is calling for an increase in HAP base rates to reflect current rental asking prices, a measure Threshold has costed at €37.4m. It is further calling for a €37m extension of the warmer homes scheme for those in receipt of HAP.

The charity is also calling for the creation of a rent register and the establishment of a deposit protection scheme. Perhaps most strikingly, Threshold is calling on the Government to set aside the €21m necessary for a constitutional referendum on the right to housing.

Need to address poverty 

One of Cork’s oldest charities is Penny Dinners, which deals on a daily basis with people living in homelessness, and it also helps those who are existing in precarious living conditions.

The charity’s volunteer co-ordinator, Caitríona Twomey, said the charity every day feeds in excess of 1,000 people. She said that while Penny Dinners has not made a pre-budget submission, its wish-list to Government was short.

“Unless the Government starts to seriously address the long-term causes of poverty, we’re going nowhere in this country,” Ms Twomey said.

“Every year they’ll throw a few bob at people, a once-off welfare payment or the like, but the truth is a once-off payment will only help people once off.

“Every budget seems made up of once-off measures, and until we start thinking about long-term solutions, nothing will change.”

Ms Twomey said the Little Hanover Street charity has noted a sharp rise in recent years in the number of working people coming to the charity, and said that for some, once rent or mortgage payments were met, there was no money left for food.

“This is people on minimum wage, and it isn’t just people on minimum wage, it’s parents with families, it’s people who are struggling to get by, and things are getting worse for them,” she said.

“The Government needs to start helping people, they need to look at social welfare, and they need to seriously tackle the cost of living,” Ms Twomey said.