Housing waiting list hits over 500 in Athlone town

Latest figures have revealed there are over 500 households on Athlone Town Council's housing waiting list. According to statistics from the Department of Environment, in March 2008 last, there were a total of 531 outstanding applications for local authority housing in Athlone Town Council's area. And based on the number of applicants housed in 2008, it would take over seven years to clear the current backlog, if no new applications were forthcoming. The waiting list had more than doubled in just three short years. In 2005, there were only 206 on the housing waiting list. Of the 531 on the waiting list in March 2008, 40% were waiting for more than two years. More than one fifth or 156 households, were on the list for two to three years while 116 were waiting for between one and two years. 69 had been waiting for less to three months, 57 were on the list for between three and six months, 81 between six and 12 months and 47 between three to four years. Three were on the waiting list for between four to five years and two were waiting for between five to seven years. The figures come from the Annual Housing Statistics Bulletin 2008 which was released earlier this week by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Out of these applications to Athlone Town Council, 104 needed accomodation for medical or compassionate grounds, 17 were older people, while 288 were persons not able to meet the cost of their own accomadation or obtain suitable alternative accomadation. There was also an application for housing from one homeless person, 13 Traveller family units, 29 from households living in unfit accomadation, 42 from households living in overcrowded accomodation and 37 were living in shared accomadation but required seperate housing. In comparison, there was a total of 581 housing applications made during the same time to Westmeath County Council, a 42.4% increase for the same period. The majority of these have to wait one to two years to be housed. Of these applications to the town council, 215 were in private rented accomodation, 41 were living with parents, 25 with relatives, eight were living with friends, two were sleeping rough, one was an owner-occupier, while 239 were in the 'other' category. There were 553 households on the Roscommon County Council housing waiting list as of March 2008, an increase of 18.4% compared to 2005 figures. The majority of these applications, 304, came from persons who could no longer afford their own accommodation or obtain suitable alternatives, while 134 applications were from persons who needed suitable accommodation for medical or compassionate grounds. During 2008, there were 11 new units built by Athlone Town Council, nine were acquired and 11 units were commenced. The council had 27 'casual vacancies' by the end of 2008 and 27 houses were provided for rental accomodation under Social and Affordable Housing. The council did not complete or acquire any housing units, voluntary and co-operative housing unit or use any units under the Rental Allowance Scheme. No traveller units were provided and there was no extension/improvement works carried out in lieu of re-housing. There were also no affordable housing provided. According to the national averages, there was a small increase in the waiting period for households seeking social housing support in 2008, with 49% of households waiting for a period longer than two years. But the majority of households had been waiting for social housing support for less than two years, with 31% waiting for less than a year. However, Focus Ireland challenged the accuracy of these figures and said that the statistics underestimate the problem of homelessness by more than half. The group said that any housing policy based on the department's assessment would fail to address the scale of the problem.