According to a recent report conducted by RTE’s Prime Time, it is understood that the amount of people currently waiting on the local authority housing lists has increased by more than 2% in the past three months.
Researchers for the programme found that the number of people actively waiting in on the housing list in Dublin City has grown by 2.69% since the beginning of October 2015. Meanwhile the programme also found that there are currently 139,359 people currently on housing lists throughout the country, that figure significantly increased by 4,000 from last October when it was standing at 135,832.
The vast majority of the list is apparently made up of those people on the Housing Assistance Payment Scheme, who have reportedly been waiting since over 6 months or more for a home. The spiralling list does not fair well for those who are currently in desperate need for a home as the programme also highlighted the plight of one Co Meath man, David Hamill who has been homeless since January 2015.
Mr Hamill told the programme his major difficulty at this present time is securing accommodation, he said “The council are telling me it’s going to be six or seven years before we’re housed. The situation is that in Kells, the rental accommodation, there’s none – sorry there was two on it yesterday, one on Daft.ie and they won’t accept rent allowance.”
The news of Mr Hamill’s situation has been echoed by many in recent months as the government have failed to address the issue of overcharging landlords not excepting rent allowance from those who cannot afford to pay continuously rising rent prices. This blatant racketeering by greedy landlords has led to many citizens being left with no option but to turn to local council’s for help.