Over 200 on house list for over 10 years

A TOTAL of 220 people have been waiting for more than 10 years for a home with Cork County Council.

The figures were released at a recent meeting of the Council, when members were told that the number of approved applicants on the current social housing list is 4,771.

 The meeting was also told that 540 had joined the list in the past year, but that 220 applicants were waiting a decade or more.

Cllr Des O’Grady (SF) who had sought the written report, said it highlighted that ‘the crisis is getting worse’.

‘This list won’t get shorter anytime soon, and we can see that 220 approved applicants have been waiting over 10 years and that trend is continuing and that’s an intolerable situation,’ said Cllr O’Grady.

The report by Maurice Manning, director of housing, showed that 1,194 applicants had been approved in the past year. It showed that 512 applicants have been on the waiting list for the last seven to 10 years, 571 have been waiting between five and seven years and 1,202 have been waiting from three to five years. 

The total number of files closed due to non-response to  requests for updated information was 1,559, but Cllr O’Grady said he suspected that a lot of those people may be still in need of this housing.

‘I suspect some of these people are not aware they were put off the list. I’m not blaming Cork County Council, I’m blaming the Government for not providing enough funding to tackle the housing crisis,’ said Cllr O’Grady.

Cllr Melissa Mullane (SF) said it was shocking to see that 92 people who are classed as ‘homeless’ are on the waiting list.

‘It’s all down to Government funding,’ said Cllr Mullane.

The report also showed that there are 583 disabled people on the waiting list, with 237 of those suffering a physical disability, while 53 were on the disability list for exceptional medical or compassionate reasons.

Cllr John O’Sullivan (FG) said the most important thing was to identify those most in need of housing and to get a mechanism ‘to find those who are happy and those actively searching for housing.’

‘Something radically needs to be done on the figure of 583 disabled people on the waiting list and it highlights a much bigger problem. We should be concentrating our resources on those actively seeking social housing,’ said Cllr O’Sullivan.

Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) said that the Council should have more input in getting people houses and that it was unacceptable that some people were years on the waiting list.

Cllr Des O’Grady (SF) pointed out that the picture will be even more darker in 12 months’ time and urged the Government to provide more capital funding.