People in emergency accommodation cannot even get a viewing, says Cork Simon

People in Cork Simon’s emergency accommodation shelter are giving up on looking for rental properties as they are not able to even get a viewing, a spokesperson for the charity has said.

Simon’s March 2025 Locked Out of the Market report found no properties to rent within Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) limits in Cork city centre or the suburbs.

The report found that no properties were available to rent within HAP limits in 10 of the 16 areas studied across the country, including Cork city centre and Cork city suburbs. Of those available to rent, 76% were in Dublin.

Half of the areas in the report, including Cork city centre, had no properties available within HAP limits in December or January.

A further quarter saw a reduction since December, including Cork city suburbs, which had one HAP property in the previous report and none in this one.

Not possible

The report includes a quote from Tadhg, a Cork Simon service user, who said: “Oh, there’s no way you’d find a property within the HAP limits. It’s not really possible. Even being on Homeless HAP, the higher threshold, it’s still impossible to find places.”

Cork Simon head of campaigns and communications Paul Sheehan told The Echo that the lack of HAP properties in Cork is very worrying.

“Anyone who is dependent on HAP is effectively locked out of the market; they haven’t a hope of getting somewhere,” he said.

“The people in our emergency shelter tell you that they’re searching on various housing websites day in, day out, but there comes a point when they say: ‘What’s the point?’, because they can’t even get a viewing.

“That feeds into a sense of hopelessness about ever getting out of emergency accommodation, and the longer someone stays in emergency accommodation, the harder it is to exit.

“We’ve seen the cost of rents continue to rise, with annual increases every year.

“It’s really putting pressure on families dependent on the private rental market for housing, and particularly anyone stuck in emergency accommodation — that route out of homelessness that used to be viable five years ago is no longer an option.

“The rental market was a fast route out of homelessness for many people, particularly single households, and now it’s a route into homelessness.”

Problem

He explained that the end of the tenant-in-situ scheme due to Cork City Council receiving “insufficient” funding from the Government will exacerbate the problem.

“People who are renting and the landlord decides to sell, so they have to leave, accounts for the vast majority of notices to quit,” he said.

“If a family receive a notice to quit, there isn’t a hope they’ll find another private rental property at a price they can afford.”

The tenant-in-situ scheme allows local authorities to purchase rental properties from landlords who are selling, ensuring that tenants who would otherwise face eviction due to the sale can continue to rent from the authority.

Some 225 people, including 100 children, in Cork city avoided homelessness through this scheme last year, but councillors were told last week that “the funding allocation received is inadequate” to fulfil last year’s commitments and to continue the programme this year.

Severe pressure

In 2024, an average of 10 households per month were pushed into homelessness following a ‘no fault’ notice of termination, Cork Simon previously reported, but Mr Sheehan said: “Emergency accommodation is completely full”.

“Households are already under severe pressure,” said Mr Sheehan. 

“It doesn’t make sense for the Government to put the brakes on an initiative that has proven to be successful in preventing people from being pushed into homelessness. Tenant-in-situ accounted for a third of homelessness preventions last year.

“Add this to the Government talk earlier this year of reviewing or scrapping the rent pressure zones — the last few months we’ve seen record amounts of homelessness.

“There’s no emergency accommodation left.

“It makes no sense scrapping these measures when there is no end in sight for the housing crisis.”