CLLR Michael McBride has said Donegal is facing a homeless crisis and called for Donegal County Council to meet the Housing Minister to ask for modular homes for the county.
He made his comments at Tuesday’s meeting of Letterkenny-Milford Municipal District where he spoke of the lack of progress on defective council houses.
Telling members that this motion to provide modular homes was bought before council already to no avail, he added that everyone was now out on the canvass and his telephone was ringing more and more about the lack of housing.
“There are people with defective concrete homes and people served with eviction notices who have been renting a property for ten or eleven years. Now rents are being raised and they are being asked to pay double what they have been,” he said.
“We are in a crisis and will be in a bigger homeless crisis than we have ever been in. There is no where to put people. The lack of available houses is holding people back from applying to get their homes fixed,” he said.
He added that it was time government stood up and backed the council adding that there had been no progress on making modular homes available despite previous calls to do so.
Seconding the motion Cllr Gerry McMonagle said people with defective concrete homes were now accessing the scheme but there is no where for them to go.
“Rents are high and we have seen rises from €650 to €1,250 and from €600 to €1,300 and people cannot afford to pay those rental changes.
“We have almost 1,000 social houses, maybe more, and a lot of those will need to be demolished. We have no where to put these people.
“A number of sites for modular homes have been offered across the county. We should get these modular homes built over the summer and that would be a good job of work the council could do,” he added.
In response to Cllr McBride’s motion the executive in their written reply stated: “A delegation from the council, including members and officials, have met with the department on a number of occasions in relation to the defective blocks issue.
“The council has requested a further meeting with the department to continue discussions on a range of defective blocks related matters. This issue can be raised again when this meeting is held.”
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