Dublin City Council are considering the possibility of using prefabs as homes for homeless families, it was revealed by The Irish Times this morning.
More than 150 families are currently being housed in Dublin hotels, 341 of this number reported to be children, and the Council are now believed to be “seriously looking” at building prefabs for these families.
Earlier this year the Council had estimated that they would spend in the region of €4.5 million in emergency accommodation for families but now, due to the increase in homelessness, it is expected that this estimation will be exceeded.
The Council is said to be looking at thermo-insulated prefabs that have cooking facilities. The prefabs are also believed to have separate living and sleeping areas.
Speaking to the newspaper, Assistant Chief Executive and head of housing Dick Brady stated that the number of families who are becoming homeless is growing rapidly and that the emergency accommodation in local hotels raises serious child-safety concerns.
“If things get worse, I respectfully suggest we may be looking at temporary solutions like the provision of temporary accommodation. I’m talking about some form of cellular accommodation on vacant sites: prefabs.
“I would rather see people living as families in that form of accommodation than in a hotel where they have nowhere to cook and families are sharing bedrooms,” he continued before also calling for rent control.
“There is also a case for trying to persuade our banking friends to move away from receiverships on buy-to-let properties and to put in, even on a temporary basis, a system of rent receivers, so the banks can take the property back, but leave the tenants in the properties and use the rent to keep the properties going.
“People living in these properties are being pushed back out into our services. We need to stop that, to at least give us time to stabilise the situation so other ideas in relation to housing outputs can be put in place.”
The figures released today show an increase of homelessness since June, when 143 families including 299 children were homeless.
