Public meeting on the housing crisis, organised by “Raise the Roof”, to be held in Limerick on June 13th.
A public meeting organised by the trade union led “Raise The Roof” coalition is due to take place in the Strand Hotel on Monday June 13 at 7.30pm.
Housing expert, and professor in DIT, Lorcan Sirr will speak at the meeting alongside Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin and speakers from People Before Profit, Limerick Community Action and Tenants Union (CATU), SIPTU and others.
House prices are up 77% since 2012 and are set to rise by up to 12% annually. Rents in Limerick City are increasing by 15% annually, many times the maximum of 2% in Rent Pressure Zones.
Despite the acute shortage of affordable homes, there may be up to 137,000 houses lying vacant across the country. Some 3,000 homes in Limerick could be made habitable quickly, if the Government acted.
There is enough State-owned and public land available to build at least 50,000 new homes. The Government’s Housing for All plan repeats the same failed policies of the past and will not deliver the affordable homes needed. Housing for All makes little or no mention of the major problems in the student accommodation sector, where high price developments built by ‘for profit’ providers are driving prices upwards for all students, while those in ‘digs’ have no tenant rights or protections. As young workers, families and students are denied affordable housing, investors and speculators have done well from the crisis. A leading investment firm has advised clients that: “... Current housing policy has benefited both institutions and developers at the expense of individual buyers.”
Only a radical break with these failed policies can deliver secure, affordable homes for all. To make this radical break we need to double state investment to develop a major State-led housing programme for provision of new public, affordable and cost rental homes, make affordability the key priority of all housing policy, with affordability linked to incomes and provide capital grants to higher education institutions for affordable purpose-built student accommodation, retain all public land in public control for delivery of public, affordable and cost rental homes and act immediately on the scandal of vacant properties, introduce a Rent Freeze and guarantee affordability through new rent controls: Create genuinely secure, long-term tenancies for renters and we need to hold a referendum to place a right to a home into the constitution.
Raise the Roof is a coalition of trade unions, housing and homeless agencies, women’s groups, political parties, representatives of older people, children’s advocacy groups, community organisations, student unions, Traveller groups, housing academics and experts.
