Fr Peter McVerry. Using public funds to pay private landlords to house homeless people is not sustainable due to the increasing cost and lack of housing according to Fr Peter McVerry.
In the Peter McVerry Trust’s Annual Report 2016 the accommodation team stated that throughout 2016 there was a need to secure “exceptional payments” above the rent supplement and Housing Assistance Programme (HAP) rate, which they said ‘demonstrated the lack of available affordable accommodation within the rates set by the Government’.
Fr McVerry said it was a “flawed” government policy to rely too heavily on schemes like the HAP.
“We have to provide social housing, we can either build them or use the empty building, the 183,000 empty houses and apartments that lie around the country, some of them not suitable but many of them are suitable,” said Fr McVerry, adding that Compulsory Purchase Orders should be pursued.