Horrified at Burgess advocating making people homeless
I am engaged in social work in Cape Town in South Africa, but the most disturbing thing I have seen today is Brendan Burgess’s response (Irish Independent, September 27) to iCare Housing’s initiative to help prevent the ever-increasing number of homelessness in Ireland.
I am astonished with the conclusions he has reached. Notwithstanding the fact that repossessions have soared in Ireland from 2014, his contention that we should open the flood gates and facilitate mass evictions and that then, people will just ‘move on’, is an attitude which echoes the ethos espoused in ‘the great clearances’ of 1840s Ireland.
How could he possibly advocate for men, women, and children to be turned out onto the road? To defend these evictions by saying that to intervene is to disrespect those who have survived the great Irish depression of the past decade, is not only deflecting true blame for our nation’s financial ruin from the real culprits, but to crushingly foster it upon those who face their darkest hour, losing their home.
Converting private homes into social housing is not a “kick in the face for people who have struggled to pay their way”, it is a humanitarian response to a very real crisis. The contention people have not paid their mortgages because the bank could not throw them out is not only nonsensical, it is deeply disrespectful and hurtful to the pain and suffering endured by thousands. It is especially so to the hundreds of families who have lost loved ones through suicide, directly attributable to home repossession.
Those who cannot pay their mortgage are not the ones contributing to the high interest rates of profitable banks excused from paying taxes for the next 20 years, to say so is beyond disingenuous, it is a social recklessness. I hope those struggling for the past decade are, as Mr Burgess contends, “delighted” with this new plan, I hope it brings them peace and security, I hope it keeps children out of one room B&Bs, I hope it will be the beginning of a new era of social housing in Ireland.
For if we do not meet the challenges of homelessness head on, then there is no logical reason why homelessness will not continue to grow exponentially. Glyn Carragher Co Galway