Review could see people removed from waiting list for housing

Date Published: 06-Jun-2012

By Dara Bradley

Letters have been sent to hundreds of people on the local authority housing waiting list in County Galway to establish if they still qualify for social housing under new eligibility thresholds.

Galway County Council has confirmed that it is contacting 2,400 of the 3,000 on the county’s housing waiting list in order to reassess if they are still eligible to receive a home, and many of them may be dropped from the list.

Eugene Cummins, Galway County Council’s Director of Services for Corporate, Housing and Emergency Services, said that his department was required by national regulation to carry out the assessment to make sure those on the list are still eligible.

Mr Cummins said generally housing waiting lists are inflated and exaggerated and do not reflect the actual numbers of people with a housing need.

“We have written to people on the list. They need to be assessed to see if they still have a housing need. It (eligibility thresholds) has changed, new income bands have been introduced, and people may now find that they no longer have a housing need,” he said.

Mr Cummins explained that some people may have got a job since they were added to the list and their income now exceeds the threshold; or some households with a number of occupants may have a cumulative social welfare income that exceeds the threshold.

If people do not reply to the letters, it will be deemed that they have either moved on, have emigrated or no longer have a housing need and they will be removed from the housing list.

Read more in today’s Connacht Tribune