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IN ONE WEEK’S time, on Saturday the first of April, the winter eviction ban will end, plunging thousands of households into rental insecurity.
The ban was first brought in about four months ago on 1 November in order to slow the number of people entering homelessness during the winter period while the government put additional measures in place to ease the housing crisis.
While housing and homelessness charities and opposition TDs had called for the ban to be extended, the Government ultimately decided to scrap it earlier this month.
As things stand, the ban will lapse on 1 April. And while there will be a staggered withdrawal of protections (depending on the length of time a person was a tenant and when they were served their notice), by 18 June anyone who has been served with a notice of termination and has been given the legally required length of time will have to leave their rented home.
This will affect thousands of households. While the exact number is unclear, latest figures from the RTB show that 4,741 notices of termination were issued between July and September of last year, just before the ban came into place, with lots more likely to have been served since then.
Many of the people facing eviction don’t know where they’re going to go when they’re forced to leave their home.
These people are from a cross-section of Irish society: they are students and retirees, workers and the unemployed, singles, couples and families with small children. Here are some of their stories.
(Names marked with an asterisk have been changed).
Monica* – Co Clare
Monica* is a single mother who lives with her two children in Co Clare. She moved to Clare about eight years ago after she became a single parent.
She has lived in her current home for more than five years. Her landlord lives outside of the country, and Monica says she doesn’t have much dealings with them. She fixes issues with the house herself.
Monica said she contacted her landlord over a leak in her home, and when they responded they requested that she leave the home in the summer, as they will be selling the property.
“And so I mailed them back and said I’m entitled to six months notice, but even then six months notice… it’s not going to make any difference in six months, there are no houses,” she told TheJournal.
And what they want is two professionals, and they don’t take HAP. It’s just an impossible situation. I literally have no idea where we’re going to live.
Monica works as a freelance translator and editor, and recently has been teaching English to Ukrainian refugees. Her children attend local schools, and play hurling for the local GAA club. They are fully embedded in the community and Monica does not want to leave the area.
“My kids are one in secondary and one in primary and they’re just asking me where are we going to live? And I have no idea,” she said.
She said she has scoured the area for a home to live in. She has checked websites, asked friends, requested in local WhatsApp and Facebook groups, but nothing has come available. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of properties in the area listed on short-term let website AirBnB.
“It’s just not sustainable when people can choose to rent out somewhere for three months and leave it empty for the rest of the year, and it’s more lucrative to them than renting to a family,” she said.
That’s a systemic problem. There are loads of houses there. My kids are always pointing at houses and saying, ‘why can’t we move there? Can we just ask them?’, and it’s just all these empty houses.
She said she is on the Social Housing Waiting List, but there are very few properties available in Clare, and not enough in the pipeline to meet the growing demand. She has contacted the council repeatedly for help, and has been ringing local councillors, but as of yet has not been able to find anywhere to move to.
“In the time I’ve lived here the rents have literally doubled in this small area. There are 22 houses for the entire county, and Clare’s a big county. There are 22 houses on Daft at the moment,” she said.
She said the Tenant in Situ Scheme could be an option. This is a government scheme in which a local authority purchases a home that is being sold to make sure the tenants can remain living there. The council then rents it back to the tenants at social housing rates.
However, Monica said that the house “has massive structural problems” that need to be addressed, and that it likely would not be a good investment for the council. She said there is black mould and the house becomes regularly infested with rats.
Though she would love to move to a better home, Monica has nowhere else to go. She said that living with the threat of eviction is very difficult for her and her family:
“It’s just so distracting. I feel really displaced, disembodied. I can’t settle to things because there’s no foundation under us, we don’t have any stability,” she said.
“It’s an absolutely basic requirement for life to have shelter and I don’t feel like I have that sorted.
But that’s how I feel, I feel like: ‘how have I not got the ability for my family, you know, that I can’t provide that?’
She said of all her friends, the only ones who have been able to find secure accommodation are those who were able to build on land belonging to their parents, or those whose parents were able to give them the lend of a deposit.
“You go through your Leaving Cert, you go to college where you’re supposed to. I came out top of my class at Trinity in my masters. I have done all those things.
And it doesn’t matter, the goalposts keep changing. They just keep on changing and it doesn’t matter what you do, your nose is just above the water always.
Saoirse – North County Dublin
Saoirse lives with her husband and three small children under the age of five in a house in north county Dublin. The family were served with an eviction notice in October last year, just before the eviction ban came into effect, as their landlord is selling their home.
Saoirse is in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), which is a form of rental support. She is originally from Clondalkin, but was unable to find anywhere to live there and so moved to Dublin Fingal.
Her husband works fulltime. She has been searching everywhere for another home to move into with her family, but has been unable to find anything.
“I’ve been looking non-stop, but you can’t even get a response. I haven’t had a single viewing, a single response,” she said.
“I’ve been looking at about 10 different areas and applying for things in all of those areas and there’s nothing.
I would accept or take a place in so many different areas. I’m not fussy, I just want somewhere to live.
Saoirse and her husband were hoping that Fingal County Council would step in and purchase the house from her landlord under the Tenant in Situ Scheme.
However, as Saoirse is on the South Dublin County Council housing waiting list, she said Fingal County Council won’t purchase the home, as it is a different local authority.
In June, she fears she will have to present as homeless with her family.
“And everything I’m seeing is saying there’s no homeless accommodation, so I don’t even know what’s going to happen there,” she said.
“We don’t have anyone to stay with… We’re terrified pretty much.
Obviously we’ve three kids. If it was just us, fine, but we’ve three kids to worry about.
Saoirse said an extension of the eviction ban could have given her time to appeal the council’s decision on the Tenant in Situ Scheme, “or at least it could have given us some breathing space or some time to try and sort something out, because at the moment nothing is working.
Yeah, it would be a great help, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, does it?
Paul - South Dublin
Paul (40) has lived in an apartment with his 9-year-old daughter in south Dublin for the past nine years. She is in third class in a local school, and Paul is a self-employed video producer.
His daughter’s mother lives nearby, and the two are co-parenting.
Paul was served with an eviction notice in October of last year, and is also due to be out of his home in June. The mother of his child was also served an eviction notice at around the same time, and neither has been able to find another place to live.
“Obviously I have been looking far and wide and I can’t even get a viewing, never mind on a list,” he said.
“There’s two households, two separate parents co-parenting a child in the exact same scenario, and it’s just quite frightening because there’s no real option for me.
I can’t move home, there’s no spare rooms in my parents’ house… And I can’t be going around jumping on couches with a daughter who needs to go to school.
Paul said he was “crestfallen and disgusted” by the government’s decision to overturn the eviction ban, but that he had had no faith that they would keep the ban in place.
He has been offered first refusal by his landlord, but says he can’t afford to buy the house. He has contacted local TDs, councillors and representatives from government and opposition parties, but nothing has been successful.
He has tried to get on his local Social Housing Waiting List, but has been informed there is a 14 week waiting period for processing the paperwork.
“That’s my hope now… What options do I have?” He said.
Go to live in invisible emergency accommodation? Go and live in the living room of my old parents’ house?
“It’s absolutely insane how the period of time during the eviction notice was just left. What did they do? They did nothing. It’s unbelievable.”
He said that if he hasn’t sorted alternative accommodation by the time the eviction falls due, he’s “not going anywhere”.
“I know people in a similar scenario and they’re quite simply not going anywhere now,” he said.
I’ve paid taxes my whole life. I’ve worked my whole life. I’ve not a hint of a criminal record. I’ve done everything by the book… but I will hold out, hold out.
He said his daughter is worried and “knows what’s going on”, though he tries to mask the situation from her.
Councillor Madeleine Johansson and James O’Toole – Dublin 8
James O’Toole and his wife Madeleine Johansson – a People Before Profit councillor on South Dublin County Council – have been conducting a campaign against their planned eviction in June.
The pair, along with the other tenants of the 35 flats in Tathony House apartment complex in Rialto, were served with a mass eviction notice by their landlord in October, as he is selling the building. They will have to leave their home in June.
They have been living in the building since 2009.
“It’s a bit overwhelming… you say to yourself, ‘where am I going to go?’ but a few months ago it didn’t really hit me that actually there’s a very real prospect that we could have nowhere to go except relatives,” he said.
“And I dread the idea of going to my 77-year-old parents and saying, ‘Can I stay here for a few weeks while I save for a deposit?’
And then it turns out that that few weeks becomes a few months, because there’s no properties available. The whole thing is quite stressful, you end up not sleeping.
The Tyrrelstown Amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act of 2016 prevents landlords or property owners from evicting 10 or more units of their property at once, unless they would be caused “undue hardship” financially by allowing the tenants to stay.
Councillor Madeleine Johansson said that the eviction notice is not valid, and the tenants have taken a case challenging it to the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), but they are still awaiting a date for a hearing.
“It’s a mass eviction so it goes against the Tyrrelstown Amendment,” said Madeleine.
“Obviously we want to contest that in the RTB. But looking at Daft and all those websites, there’s just nothing. There’s definitely really nothing that we can afford,” she said.
She said living with the threat of eviction is “a constant worry”.
When you just don’t know where you’re going to be living in six months’ time, you know? Yeah, it’s hard, you can’t sleep, constantly feeling stressed out and tired.
She said that if they were unable to find anywhere to rent, tenants would have no option but to overhold and remain in the property after eviction, and that many others would be forced to do the same.
“We know that there’s 1,000s of people with notices and there’s very few properties available. And we also know that there’s not going to be enough emergency accommodation for people,” she said.
So really, the only option is for people just stay in their home and overhold.
Both James and Madeleine called for the eviction ban to be extended and for the government to undertake large-scale public house building, while also increasing tenants’ protections.
“I’m in a block full of people who work, people with families, you know, couples, and we basically live in a society where those of us who work and pay tax are given no protections and the basic human rights to have a roof over your head is denied,” said James.
It’s insane.
TheJournal.ie contacted the landlord of Tathony House for comment but had received no response at the time of publication.
Joe* (56) – South Dublin
Joe has been living in a two-bed rented house in south Dublin for the past nine years. His tenancy is through the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS).
Through this scheme, a landlord enters into an agreement with the local authority (in this case South Dublin County Council). the council pays the rent to the landlord, and James pays a social housing rent to the council.
Joe suffered a deep trauma when he was a boy, and has post-traumatic stress disorder. He finds it difficult to leave the house, he suffers from depression and has a number of chronic health conditions. He lives with his partner in the house, who is also his full time carer.
In September, Joe was notified that the landlord was not renewing the contract with the council, and would be selling the house. He was issued with an eviction notice and will have to leave his home by June.
He says he was told initially that the council would not be able to help him and he may become homeless. Now, he said they may be able to secure a one bedroom apartment for him, but that will not meet his needs. James has two dogs who he considers a lifeline to him.
“Everything keeps changing, I can’t even fill out the [social housing] application from the council because everything is changing day to day,” he said.
He said the council should buy the house under the Tenant in Situ scheme, but that no moves have been made in this regard. Joe was taken off the housing waiting list when he went on RAS, as his housing need was deemed to be met. He said the government should have extended the eviction ban.
“It would give me more time to sort out with the council, you know?” He said.
Eviction stories
The stories above are a tiny sample of the thousands of households potentially facing eviction in the coming months.
Hundreds of accounts of people facing eviction have been collected by Uplift – a campaigning organisation that advocates for social change – on an eviction stories map launched earlier this week.
Commenting on the government’s plan to lift the ban, Uplift Executive Director Siobhán O’Donoghue, said that government were “out of step” with where the voters were.
“They’re out of step with the absolute reality of trying to keep children safe and keep a roof over their heads,” she said.
“The argument that lifting the eviction ban is in the long term helping tenants is incredibly insulting, it’s unbelievable.
“We’re not letting this go, we’re going to keep growing this eviction map, we’re looking at meetings across the country where we will call on TDs to explain to people who are directly affected by this decision to lift the ban.
Housing and having a secure home is the top issue that voters care about. The government have been forced to the edge by the public reaction and that’s not dying down. That’s only increasing.
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