Shameful neglect of housing needs of people with disabilities

June 19 2018

ESRIHousingImage

Disability Federation of Ireland                                           Press Release, Immediate 15/05/18 

 

Shameful neglect of housing needs of people with disabilities  

 

Today’s report from IHREC and ESRI makes stark reading, spotlighting as it does an abject failure to provide people with disabilities with the most basic human need, the need for a home. The Disability Federation of Ireland, DFI, has been highlighting “the crisis within the housing crisis” for some time.  

 

Today’s research draws on a shameful body of evidence from the worsening housing crisis. For example: 

  

  • Census 2016 showed us that over a quarter of homeless people had at least one disability. (6906 homeless counted, 1871 with at least one disability).  
  • 4,456 households qualified for social housing in 2016 linked to having one or more household members with an enduring physical, sensory, mental health or intellectual disability.  
  • Over 1,000 people with disabilities under the age of 65 are living inappropriately in nursing homes for older people. 
  • 2,580 disabled people were still living in congregated settings, often called ‘institutions’, at the end of 2016. 

 

Our Pre-Budget Submission 2019 calls for an increase of €13.75 million in the Housing Adaptation Grant, HAG, as a minimum. The huge unmet need is clear when we consider that one local authority, Sligo, was so over-subscribed for HAG and two other disability housing related payments, that it could not take any more applications, in February of this year. See, https://www.independent.ie/regionals/sligochampion/news/disability-grants-gone-for-2018-already-36595801.html 

 

We have also called for further increases to the Capital Assistance Scheme, CAS. This is a key source of funding for the delivery of specialist social housing. 

 

We welcome and support the call for legal protection against discrimination made in today’s report. But even more crucially we need to see money allocated in Budget ’19 to address this national scandal.  

 

For more information contact Clare Cronin at DFI 086-0277824 or 01-7080108  

ENDS