Gaelic Voices for Change - Dec 16th sleep out

[Rossfan]

How many hectares are NAMA sitting on?
How about building a load of houses under a "rent to buy" scheme for 1st time buyers who will never put away enough to meet the 10% deposit requirement?
Vat deferment as I suggested earlier?
Govt take up the ILCU offer to fund social housing?

[Dougal Maguire]

Some dreadful comments on this thread akin to Nazi Germany

[Syferus]

How many hectares are NAMA sitting on?
How about building a load of houses under a "rent to buy" scheme for 1st time buyers who will never put away enough to meet the 10% deposit requirement?
Vat deferment as I suggested earlier?
Govt take up the ILCU offer to fund social housing?

Y'see, inflationary bubbles are a massive issue with things that make it easier to buy houses, or at least appear like you are buying a house. Prices have already risen to silly levels despite massive building happening and hundreds if not thousands of unwanted houses being built in the last ten years. A crash like the last one would cause more to be homeless. Everything is co-dependant in housing - it's a very fine balancing act.

[foxcommander]

Y'see, inflationary bubbles are a massive issue with things that make it easier to buy houses, or at least appear like you are buying a house. Prices have already risen to silly levels despite massive building happening and hundreds if not thousands of unwanted houses being built in the last ten years. A crash like the last one would cause more to be homeless. Everything is co-dependant in housing - it's a very fine balancing act.

Thank you professor for the economics lecture. Insightful as usual.

[T Fearon]

Can someone explain to me how during my childhood,where money was scarce and there were big Catholic working class families,in the North and presumably the South,many existing on meagre benefits,homelessness was non existent?

Yes drugs were non existent,but there was no easy credit facilities,and people lived comfortably within their means.

[foxcommander]

Can someone explain to me how during my childhood,where money was scarce and there were big Catholic working class families,in the North and presumably the South,many existing on meagre benefits,homelessness was non existent?

Yes drugs were non existent,but there was no easy credit facilities,and people lived comfortably within their means.

Community spirit is dead. The GAA is probably the last element left.

[omaghjoe]

It is essentially equated with rough sleeping which is presumably why GAA players slept out in Dublin and Belfast City Centres last Saturday night.

Reading through this thread one would think that those of us with rooves over our heads should be considered lucky or blessed as opposed to the reality of having worked hard and made sacrifices to acquire and keep accommodation.

The solution as I said is simple enough,the homeless should be lifted from the streets every night and placed in an institution,the addicted should receive treatment and the relatives of others found on the streets should be informed and encouraged to collect their kith and kin as soon as possible.

Homeless and rough sleeping in LA is considerably worse than in Ireland. So Ive seen a few solutions floated and this is often the first one.

Biggest problem with that soltuion is being homeless is not a crime so you cant get arrested for being homeless. The police used to get around this by lifting them for drug possession, they got thrown in the clink and could make bail so thats where they stayed more or less at the taxpayers expense.
Then everyone thought it was a great idea to legalize marijuana. What happened then was the police cant lift them for that either and the rough sleeping population explodes and I mean explodes! They are literary everywhere in Southern California.
I heard them mention on the news tha they were thinking of making the Encampment on Skid Row a UN status refugee camp, ....on the streets on one of the world's wealthiest cities!

Also relatives often dont want to know they've been around the block with them supporting them on addiction programs only for that to lapse. I know someone that works for the city adjacent to mine and they will actually pay the families to take them away, doesnt work tho the homeless population keeps growing

What to do? Nobody knows. Applying emotions to it doesn't solve anything either, some people declare its their own fault so they deserve it. Maybe it is, maybe its not, but that's doesn't get them off the streets and the problems that comes with it.
Some people provide services for them food showers haircuts etc at the encampments however that provides them with basically everything they need and the encampments grow and grow and unsurprisingly they say they are happy there...

There are no easy solutions

[ashman]

It is essentially equated with rough sleeping which is presumably why GAA players slept out in Dublin and Belfast City Centres last Saturday night.

Reading through this thread one would think that those of us with rooves over our heads should be considered lucky or blessed as opposed to the reality of having worked hard and made sacrifices to acquire and keep accommodation.

The solution as I said is simple enough,the homeless should be lifted from the streets every night and placed in an institution,the addicted should receive treatment and the relatives of others found on the streets should be informed and encouraged to collect their kith and kin as soon as possible.

Homeless and rough sleeping in LA is considerably worse than in Ireland. So Ive seen a few solutions floated and this is often the first one.

Biggest problem with that soltuion is being homeless is not a crime so you cant get arrested for being homeless. The police used to get around this by lifting them for drug possession, they got thrown in the clink and could make bail so thats where they stayed more or less at the taxpayers expense.
Then everyone thought it was a great idea to legalize marijuana. What happened then was the police cant lift them for that either and the rough sleeping population explodes and I mean explodes! They are literary everywhere in Southern California.
I heard them mention on the news tha they were thinking of making the Encampment on Skid Row a UN status refugee camp, ....on the streets on one of the world's wealthiest cities!

Also relatives often dont want to know they've been around the block with them supporting them on addiction programs only for that to lapse. I know someone that works for the city adjacent to mine and they will actually pay the families to take them away, doesnt work tho the homeless population keeps growing

What to do? Nobody knows. Applying emotions to it doesn't solve anything either, some people declare its their own fault so they deserve it. Maybe it is, maybe its not, but that's doesn't get them off the streets and the problems that comes with it.
Some people provide services for them food showers haircuts etc at the encampments however that provides them with basically everything they need and the encampments grow and grow and unsurprisingly they say they are happy there...

There are no easy solutions

An awful lot of homeless in US drift towards LA due to its climate .

[Dougal Maguire]

Can someone explain to me how during my childhood,where money was scarce and there were big Catholic working class families,in the North and presumably the South,many existing on meagre benefits,homelessness was non existent?

Yes drugs were non existent,but there was no easy credit facilities,and people lived comfortably within their means.

Whilst I don't want to waste time debating with you do you not know anything about history here? People living in overcrowded unfit slums. You also have a complete lack of understanding of the different types of homelessness and seem to be conveniently making cheap points backing these up with uninformed jibes at vulnerable people who, for a variety of reasons, suffer from drug, alcohol and substance abuse. For a man who worked in a credit union you seem to have very empathy with the ethos of that and other organisations who exist to assist the less well off.

[Bord na Mona man]

Many of the problems were caused by outlawing bedsits without their own bathrooms. It was well intentioned, but it removed a lot of accommodation options at the bottom rung of the ladder. The rough sleeping problem will never fully be eliminated so long as alcohol, drugs and mental illness are factors. It can be managed at best.

In terms of the overall accommodation shortage. Government policy since the 1963 Planning Act has been to keep house prices inflated. Even a couple of years ago, Michael Noonan stated that it was his aim to keep house pries increasing.
People usually dismiss the possibility of social housing building, using edge cases like Ballymun or Southill, but it has been successful in most towns around the country down through the years.

[seafoid]

Many of the problems were caused by outlawing bedsits without their own bathrooms. It was well intentioned, but it removed a lot of accommodation options at the bottom rung of the ladder. The rough sleeping problem will never fully be eliminated so long as alcohol, drugs and mental illness are factors. It can be managed at best.

In terms of the overall accommodation shortage. Government policy since the 1963 Planning Act has been to keep house prices inflated. Even a couple of years ago, Michael Noonan stated that it was his aim to keep house pries increasing.
People usually dismiss the possibility of social housing building, using edge cases like Ballymun or Southill, but it has been successful in most towns around the country down through the years.

Social.housing works very well where occupiers are integrated in the community and respected.

The big cluster fucks in Dublin and Limerick involved social ostracisation.

Bord na Mona built house for workers all over the midlands as well but it was under a different economic model.

[T Fearon]

Another thing.Ive never seen anyone sleeping rough in the doorways of shops etc in my home town.Is this phenomenon restricted to large cities,Belfast and Dublin,and are the people doing it natives of these cities or do they travel there to sleep rough (after having turned down the accommodation offered to them each night)?

[magpie seanie]

Many of the problems were caused by outlawing bedsits without their own bathrooms. It was well intentioned, but it removed a lot of accommodation options at the bottom rung of the ladder. The rough sleeping problem will never fully be eliminated so long as alcohol, drugs and mental illness are factors. It can be managed at best.

In terms of the overall accommodation shortage. Government policy since the 1963 Planning Act has been to keep house prices inflated. Even a couple of years ago, Michael Noonan stated that it was his aim to keep house pries increasing.
People usually dismiss the possibility of social housing building, using edge cases like Ballymun or Southill, but it has been successful in most towns around the country down through the years.

Excellent post.

The policy of keeping house prices high is not in the interests of the many. It's clear who stands to benefit from this and it's a central plank of the widening inequality in Ireland.

Great point on the social housing issue. Citing extreme cases again indicates that there's just no appetite for letting people get houses for below the inflated prices. Sadly, we can see from this thread that several people think it's ok for us to have people homeless so long as there are more homeless people elsewhere......some sort of warped logic or ideology like that. 

[T Fearon]

No one wants to see anyone homeless,but the reasons the vast majority have homes is because they have worked damned hard to get houses and stay in them.

In modern Ireland North and South there is an array of benefits and social services available,so I find it hard to believe that anyone is sleeping rough except by choice.

[magpie seanie]

No one wants to see anyone homeless,but the reasons the vast majority have homes is because they have worked damned hard to get houses and stay in them.

In modern Ireland North and South there is an array of benefits and social services available,so I find it hard to believe that anyone is sleeping rough except by choice.

Well you're just plain wrong.