Comment: A long term, stable home environment is simply out of reach for the children of Ireland. How did we get here?
SALLY HARDING
Daft.ie released an Irish Rental Report last week that showed how rents in Meath were, on average, €1,596 per month with supply of rental properties at record lows.
On Tuesday 16th August there were just 14 homes to rent on the property site.
But it's talking to people at the heart of this housing disaster that gives this crisis it a real face.
Hard working families who don't know where their children are going to sleep next month, a mother with a special needs child who desperately needs to keep him in the college he attends but can't find a house locally, a man who after ten years finally finds a place to call home finds himself a victim of the flawed system, all facing the prospect of becoming homeless out of no fault of their own.
Earlier this year, Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys announced that a new pension scheme would be needed to allow ‘generation rent’ to afford housing upon their retirement.
As a member of ‘generation rent’, to hear the government proposing a scheme like this is deeply disheartening and feels if politicians in Ireland have resigned to the fact that there are many who will be locked out of home ownership for life.
Many of us grew up in one home for the duration of our childhood and beyond filled with memories that also becomes somewhere special for our children. Now a long term stable home environment is simply out of reach for the children of Ireland. How did we end up here?
This week I spoke to some of those people under extraordinary stress deperately trying to find accommodation for themselves and their families. These are their stories...