Structural causes refer to social and economic conditions and policies that impact whether affordable and secure housing is accessible. Structural causes include the lack of social and affordable housing, issues in the private rental market, income poverty, unemployment and discrimination.
Over the past decade structural causes have been the driving force behind the massive increase in homelessness in Ireland. The number of people in emergency accommodation grew relentlessly in the years following the crash, peaking at over over 10,500 people in emergency accommodation in late 2019 on the back of structural issues in the housing system. Although this fell during the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020 due to the moratorium on evictions, it is on the rise once more.
Lack of Social Housing
Successive governments for decades pursued a policy of depletion of the social housing stock, prioritising home-ownership as the primary goal of national housing policy. Further, capital investment in affordable and social housing ground to a halt after the 2008 financial crisis and property crash, leading to a chronic lack of social housing in Ireland.
Over-Reliance on the Private Rental Market
There has been an overreliance on the private rental market to meet the needs of those who qualify of for social housing through rent supplement and housing assistant payments. This, combined with a lack of home-building in the private market from 2008 and increased demand from a growing population, has led to record increase in rents. Record rents have pushed lower income families and people into homelessness. Exacerbating this problem, the Irish rental market is still characterised as one in which tenants lack long-term security of tenure and rent certainty when compared to other European countries.
Discrimination
Beyond the current economic conditions, equality and discrimination remain ongoing critical factors in relation to those groups who are most likely to experience homelessness in Ireland. For example, minority groups such as people with disabilities, Travellers, and non-Irish nationals are very significantly over-represented in the homelessness population as compared to the general population.
