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The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has called for a change in law to ensure homeless families don’t spend long periods in group home ‘family hubs’.
IHREC has released a detailed report outlining its concerns about the new family hub model of homeless accommodation.
Family hubs are group homes for homeless families which were first announced by Government earlier this year.
The hubs are being rolled out in Dublin in order to end the widespread use of commercial hotels and B&Bs for housing homeless families.
A total of 18 hubs are planned for Dublin, with a number already operational in the city. It is planned that 634 families will be housed in these hubs while further funds have been committed to developing more.
In its report, IHREC raised concerns about the hubs and long-term family homelessness, saying more needed to be done to provide proper homes for families. It expressed worry that the hubs could ‘normalise’ family homelessness.
The report concluded that Section 10 of the 1988 Housing Act (which deals with homelessness and homeless services), should be amended to legally limit the time a family should spend in emergency homeless accommodation to a maximum of three months.
It also recommended that regulations be introduced around emergency accommodation, which specify that a family should have access to cooking facilities and utensils, a play area, a family room and that family’s right to autonomy and privacy should be respected.
Human rights
Chief Commissioner with IHREC Emily Logan said that the proposed changes to housing laws were in order to protect the rights of homeless families.
“We’re concerned about the potential normalisation of family homelessness,” she said.
Logan said that family hubs were “certainly not conducive to long-term family living”.
The IHREC report also called for a National Quality Standards Framework for Homeless Services should be developed in order to ensure that homeless services met minimum standards.
It also said that service level agreements related to the provision of emergency accommodation should be amended to include commitments to human rights and equality as well as specific references to the rights to family life, autonomy and privacy.
Latest figures found that there were 1,312 families with 2,777 children living in homeless accommodation in Ireland in May – three times more than in 2014.
You can read the full report here
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There should be a time limit on people staying in these places , but there should also be a restriction on the right to refuse housing being offered , we can’t all live next door to mammy .
Ah jasus, is all the free stuff for homeless not good enough? Cue the tiny violin
Ah of course, sure don’t they need that four bed house with a garden in the city centre they’ve been looking for ;-)…..
How about encouraging them to get a job, like everybody else. I hear Tesco and Spar are hiring.
@Fred Jensen: many of these people do have jobs just not enough to cover rent.
@Deborah Behan:
Well then a move out of Dublin would sort that out wouldn’t it?
@Fred Jensen: Unfortunately the recovery is pretty much centered on the major cities .
@Dilly Dong: many working people commute great distances for work. I guy in my office in Dublin gets the train from Galway everyday. Another drives from limerick.
@Dilly Dong: I suspect Fred still lives with Mammy and has no real world experience with the renting sector.
@Fred Jensen: how about educating yourself on the situation and why these people have no homes instead of posting ignorant comments?
It’s a smokescreen to lessen the sensitivity to government who don’t like negative publicity.
Remember the recent discovery that waiting lists for hospital treatment are massively manipulated with waiting lists of people waiting to get on the ‘official’ waiting lists.
Same with ‘new homes’ delivered counted on ESB connections recently found to be miles higher than the true figure.
Same with unemployment figures etc. etc.
Providing ‘hubs’ gets the number of homeless down and it doesn’t matter what the accommodation may be – main priority as we head to an election is numbers. Lies, damned lies and statistics!
@Gerry Carroll: I would like to actually see how many houses have been built in the last three years of this homeless epidemic. The government has no interest in solving this problem because they are getting much more in property tax and their mates renting out property are getting the top rates also.
@Deborah Behan: I read somewhere that the governments hands are tied because of the bail out / E.U regs , they could build the houses , but would not be allowed to rent them out , something like that .
I think they have built about 150 houses in the last 2 years .
@Ken Hayden: there has been tens of thousands of new homes (mixtures of apartments, townhouses and traditional homes) built in south Dublin over the past year and made available to everyone. This frees up the housing market at the lower end and makes more units available further out (in meath, celbridge, naas etc) for those who require housing. As mentioned before, there are hundreds of social housing units lying empty owned by charities and built with govt funds, but as they are not in preferred areas they are not being taken up. Non-on the street homeless would be gone tomorrow if we just manned up and have keys to families, and told them – this is your new community now, wether in mayo, Donegal or Dublin.
@Gulliver Foyle: I don’t know where you got your numbers from. According to official figures, a total of 2076 homes were completed last year. There is a shortage out in the country too, not to the extremes of Dublin, but its still hard for people to find a house to rent that they can afford.
@Gulliver Foyle: I agree that people seeking state housing should not be allowed to be so picky , But most of the newly built housing is private as far as I’m aware , 11,000 homes in total for the country is the most I have seen .
My brother bought himself a house in longford on a ghost estate , it was a kip a year ago , now more families are moving in and the place is picking up .
@Adrian Connolly: Here’s the link to where I got my numbers from ,
https://fora.ie/new-housing-figures-ireland-2838476-Jun2016/
Hubs. Gettos in 21st century Ireland, what are we doing to our people…???
@Jed I. Knight: You’re right there , It’s like a halting site for people who never wanted a halting site .
God almighty ..These quangos should just be glad that homeless people are off the streets
@cormac o neill: Has Marion made a statement on this,yet ?
@Dilly Dong: Don’t always agree with you, but you’ve got this one right.
@Dilly Dong: And those big social housing estates caused severe social problems that still last to this day
@cormac o neill: can you imagine the insecurity these children are growing up in. I was homeless as a child for a time and the fear and stress on children and uncontrollablity of it cannot be underestimated.
@cormac o neill: ”And those big social housing estates caused severe social problems that still last to this day”
That’s a bit unfair , one of Irelands most successful businessmen was brought up in such a place , Christy Kinihan .
FG legacy.. Hubs
Building social housing is the only answer. The big “but” is neoliberal governments do not want people owning their own homes. They want people to mortgage to rent only. It will cost more than a mortgage to but your own home, and when your working life is over, it’s off to the granny farm, and the faster you die off the better.
@Dave Doyle: socialism would solve the housing crises. It would be by letting people starve to death or getting shot by secret police or mass emigration and no immigration but that would solve the demand side housing issue.
@Barry Davidson: You’re going on the list now .
When I see the words Irish Human Rights Commission I reach for my shotgun
According to a guest on today fm yesterday, there were only 26 three bedroom family houses available to rent in Dublin yesterday and they started from 1700 euro per month. So not only is there a shortage but the lower earning families, who may have had a house repossessed in the last few years, are not able to pay this. There are people with jobs that can’t afford to rent. Its very easy for people to come on here and criticize people who are homeless but the fact is, that if you have to move out of your home tomorrow that you’ll also find it very hard to find a place to live.
You only have to look up one story in every town in Ireland to see vacant modules
Hundreds of thousands of square meters of property vacant
These are most likely owned by the ground floor retailers
Maybe the government could do a grand scheme for these retailers to convert these modules into living apartments?
Irish human rights commission…please focus on actual important human rights issues in this country….lack of child mental health facilities, lack of facilities and support for the disabled..!
This is just the left pushing an issue, especially their view of “social cleansing” in the north inner city Dublin!
Open the Hubs in D4 and Foxrock and what the hell open a Hub the Dail is empty most of the time.
Our politicians would love what they can’t fix to be seen as normal because it allows them to get away with not being able to do their jobs. And then they’ll be saying “But ye’ll vote for us again in the next election or bad things will happen if you don’t!!!”.
If our politicians incompetence didn’t quadruple our national debt (from 50 to 200 bil), then we might not have a homeless crisis. And if they didn’t allow vulture funds into the market, we’d have a more realistic and affordable property market now, less homelessness.
Family Hubs are common in Europe but are used to house refugees. As usual they get it arseways in Ireland. They put their own into Hubs and give Housing to the refugees. Just goes to show they dont give a flying f@ck about the Irish person when covering their arses. Time to demand that Europe let us build housing or they can go and take a run and jump. Be interesting to know who owns these so called Hubs. We also need to remember this at Election time. We need to start holding these idiot / cowardly Tds to account.
@Brian harris:
You can’t say that, the PC brigade will be on you like a ton of bricks.
@Brian harris:
What evidence is there to back-up the accusation that immigrants are getting preferential treatment over Irish people with regard to social housing?
@Ciarán Masterson: Its everywhere. Open your eyes.
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