Government cuts back housing scheme that ‘kept hundreds of families out of homelessness'
At a North Central Area Committee briefing this week a Dublin City Council housing official revealed that due to Government cutbacks the council cannot operate its Financial Contribution Scheme.
Under this scheme the council purchased homes from older people and then provided them with DCC older person's accommodation. The scheme allowed older people to downsize and it increased the Council housing stock.
"The Government cuts to housing funding for Dublin City Council continue to cause damage,' Sinn Féin councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha said.
'We learned this week that due to the cuts, the council cannot operate its scheme whereby it purchases homes from qualifying older people and houses them in council accommodation. The scheme was important in increasing the Council's supply of scarce two and three bedroom homes.
"These are the same cuts to funding for housing acquisitions that have hit the very successful tenant-in-situ scheme. That scheme kept hundreds of families out of homelessness.
'It has now been totally undermined by this Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Lowry government, despite Dublin City Council twice voting unanimously in the past month for the scheme to be left in place and properly funded.
'People in homelessness, the citizens of Dublin and city councillors, including members of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, have been treated with contempt by the Government.
"The new Government is presiding over the scandal of 10,948 homeless people in Dublin, including 3,434 children.
'Of course that is the tip of the iceberg of the housing crisis as many, many thousands more are denied the right to decent housing, paying sky-high rents and unable to access either social or affordable homes."
DCC and the Department of Housing have been contacted for further comment.
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