People flooding clinics as housing epidemic soars
by Michael Pierse
Dublin North Inner City SF Councillor Christy Burke spoke this
week of a housing epidemic in Dublin which has caused the
``flooding'' of his advice centres. He said a ``monumental'' problem
has been allowed to escalate owing to ``the failure of the present
Government.''
Burke said he is dealing with a minimum of ten homeless people
per week, together with a number of difficulties arising from the
housing shortage in Dublin. This dilemma has led him to open a
new advice centre in Dublin's Ormond Square, thanks to the local
community. However, he was scathing in his criticism of the level
of political inactivity in countering this problem: ``If all the
public representatives worked in a coherent fashion they could
certainly alleviate many of these difficulties,'' he said.
He was critical of various strategies enacted in the past and
also what he termed the ``pure snobbery'' of certain politicians.
The selling off of public lands to the private sector since 1985
has caused a shortage of sites on which to build. In recent times
this policy was reversed and it was decided to buy back houses to
fill the vaccum. However, the begrudging snobbery of Fine Gael
and some Fianna Fáil politicians ensured that any expenditure on
individual houses was limited to £60,000, a figure is
insufficient to purchase any reasonable accommodation in Dublin.
Burke also emphasised the massive problem that homelessness is
posing to the urban climate. He described the conditions in
hostels, through no fault of the staff employed there, as being
``substandard and dickensian.'' There is the situation where 14
year-olds are forced to go to adult hostels while their mothers
are seperated into children's hostels with any other children
they may have. They are also forced to leave the hostel at 9 am
and cannot return until 8pm. ``The Celtic Tiger,'' he said
``bypasses all these working class areas.''
A good deal of houses, he said, are still without indoor toilets
or bathroom facilities. The statistics are unsettling. 6,500
people on the housing list, 8,000 on the transfer list, 2,500 on
the senior citizens list and a 12 month delay on the homeless
list.
Housing staff are finding th e situation increasingly
distressing. They are unable to cope with the frustration
expressed by many impoverished people and often end up the
targets of agression.
The City Manager John Fitzgerald has pledged to Councillor Burke
that a full report on the situation will be forwarded to City
Council, hopefully in June. Meanwhile, he continues to be
contactable at City Hall.
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