3,000 applicants but 79 council houses boarded up

Date Published: 01-Jun-2010

THERE are nearly 3,000 applicants – families or single people – on the local authority housing list yet the council has 79 homes that are vacant, some of them up to three years.

In its quarterly housing progress report presented at last night’s city council meeting, director of services Joe O’Neill said there was an almost 11% increase in the number of applicants on the housing waiting list, which now stands at 2.907. There are a further 370 applications that have to be assessed.

The council’s own stock recorded 79 empty units – of these 10 needed major refurbishment, 23 were awaiting work to accommodate a new tenant, 13 had been accepted and a further 13 were under offer.

Cllr Brian Walsh (FG) said some of those houses were empty for three years. He had been inside a number of them and they were in “perfect condition”.

“It beggars belief that houses are vacant with that number on the list,” he remarked.

Mr O’Neill said he “was not entirely happy” that units were empty for a number of years and maintenance teams would be prioritising the work in the coming months.

Cllr Michael Crowe (FF) said the council should come up with a scheme to rent out its 75 affordable units and the money paid by tenants could go towards buying the house if after three years they were in a financial position to buy it.

He also queried whether the city would be able to cope with the 66 homeless people in the city, who had been accommodated during the last two winters under an initiative for rough sleepers funded by the Government.

For more on this see our full report on pages 1 & 3 of the Connacht Sentinel