'Door is closing' on private rental sector as an exit out of homelessness, say Cork Simon

A report by Cork Simon Community shows that the private rental sector is pushing Cork people into homelessness, and no longer helping them get out of it.

In the South-West, an average of five households per month exited emergency accommodation to a private rented tenancy in the 15 months to June 2024, and 10 households per month were pushed into homelessness following a ‘no fault’ notice of termination.

Sophie Johnston of Cork Simon, who compiled the report — titled ‘How Long is an Emergency?’ — told The Echo: “This ratio is not sustainable at all”.

Based on an analysis of Department of Housing reports, the paper identifies growing rates of long-term homelessness. From 2022 to mid-2024, over half of all households in emergency accommodation in the South-West have been homeless for six months or more.

Just one in 10 managed to leave emergency accommodation to a private tenancy, with this figure dropping almost 70% in the last six years. Ms Johnston said: 

“The door is closing on the private rental sector as an exit, and it was traditionally one of the main exits, especially for single people.”

“Long-term homelessness can be really detrimental to people’s health and wellbeing,” Ms Johnston said. 

“The antidote is a home, but the chances of securing one have never been so limited.”

In the 15 months to June 2024, one in four households new to emergency accommodation in the South-West had received a ‘no fault’ notice of termination for their private rented tenancy, mostly because the landlord was selling the home.

Only 16 households exited to a private rented tenancy in the first half of 2024, with Ms Johnson explaining: “There’s a huge scarcity of rental properties, and also very high demand, you’d hear of places being taken within minutes of them being advertised.

“If you’re lucky enough to find a property, rents are soaring, which makes things incredibly tight for people — if they can’t save money they have no room for manoeuvring, so if things go wrong, they can go very wrong.”

While exits from homelessness to private rented housing have “all but collapsed”, the paper identifies an increase since the start of 2023 in exits to housing run by approved housing bodies, but adds that they have only partially filled the gap left by the fall in exits to private rented housing.

The Tenant in Situ scheme, which sees housing agencies buy homes to keep existing tenancies in place when the owner wants to sell, prevented 100 households from entering emergency accommodation in the South-West in the first six months of this year.

Ms Johnston said: “If not for this scheme, the number of people presenting to emergency accommodation would be even higher, so the legislation is working, but we would argue that more needs to be done.”

One young man, Scott, who has been in and out of emergency accommodation since he was 18, told the report authors: “Every time I come into homelessness, I see the same people, in the same place, in the same boat.”

After 10 years, Scott is on the threshold of exiting to an approved housing body tenancy, and said: “I’m just over the moon, really”.