Special post: Psychologists for Social Change

Response to Housing Commission’s Consultation on a Referendum on Housing

Psychologists for Social Change have kindly allowed me to publish their submission to the Housing Commission, which provides an excellent analysis of the impacts of the housing crisis, as well as invaluable insights into the relationship between housing, well-being and mental health.

Authors: Dr Richard Lombard-Vance; Dr Jennie Milnes; Dr Cal Mc Donagh; Dr Hannah Buckley  (on behalf of PSC Ireland)

Introduction

Access to adequate and secure housing is necessary to live a dignified life. We note that the human right to housing is already recognised by the United Nations, and we support steps towards protecting this right in Irish law. There is no doubt that the unavailability of secure and adequate housing causes psychological, physical, and social harm throughout our society. 

Despite its deep and widespread negative effects, we observe a concerning normalisation of and desensitisation to homelessness and housing insecurity. Psychological defence mechanisms such as rationalisation can allow us to look away from the human impact of social issues and policy outcomes, to avoid making necessary changes to the housing system, and to misattribute responsibility for the crisis, sometimes even responsibilising homeless or insecurely housed individuals, rather than an ineffective housing market. We hear too often that the ‘causes of homelessness are complex’. Rates of homelessness entirely unthinkable and morally outrageous just a couple of decades ago are now normalised. The way we think, measure, and speak about homelessness can serve to camouflage its extent and impact.

As psychologists, we argue that a constitutional amendment may be a prerequisite for meaningful change, by placing responsibility to safeguard the right to housing–and to enact appropriate solutions to the housing emergency–with the State.

Inequalities in Housing 

Shelter is one of the most basic human needs. A healthy, stable social and public housing system provides the basis for a healthy population. A home provides its inhabitants with ontological security. Ontological security is a safe, constant environment from which the basic routines of daily life are performed. Hygiene, rest, parenting, routinised behaviours such as cooking food and maintaining healthy behaviours happen in the home.  People’s ability to take care of themselves and their dependents depends on having the basic physical resources to do that. 

A home is an essential foundation to participation in society. The constancy of home has been shown to increase people’s sense of agency and control over their lives (Brown et al., 2022). Current housing policy and legislation in Ireland is causing the inequalities in housing to widen and that inequality has negative physical and mental health consequences for Ireland’s citizens. In the past, social/council housing provided those families who were most vulnerable to poverty and social exclusion with basic ontological security and stability. With their basic needs being met, adults had the ability to participate in employment, children in education, and people participated in strong, stable communities. Currently the reliance on the private rental sector is at the epicentre of the housing crisis because it has created an unstable housing solution for those who need it most. 

In recent decades social housing policy in Ireland has evolved into a significantly marketized tenure which relies on, supports and expands the private housing market (Byrne & Norris, 2022). 70% of people in emergency accommodation in Ireland lost their home due to landlords selling.  Prima facie and research evidence show that the present, financialised (Byrne, 2019) and commodified housing system is not meeting the needs of the populace. Our social housing policy currently is dominated by rent supplement, the rental accommodation scheme, and HAP which cannot meet current needs, does not give full effect to human rights, and is a barrier to human wellbeing (Hearne & Murphy, 2018). Prioritising financialisaton over the common good has had disastrous effects for housing security and homelessness (Lima et al., 2022). We see insufficient supply, exorbitant rents (often higher than mortgage repayments), institutional acquisitions (95% apartments completed in 2019 were purchased by institutional investors (O’Halloran, 2020)), younger generations living with parents, and structural homelessness—again, we recently set a record for the number of people experiencing homelessness.  Our reliance on the HAP model and on private landlords to provide housing units which can be sold at any moment has eroded the stability of the housing many.  These deficits in safety and stability of tenure create barriers to social connection, social and civic participation, stable employment, schooling, consistent health services (e.g., GP care), all of which has a direct negative impact on physical and mental health. 

This accords with psychologists’ experiences in practice and research; the human consequences are devastating. As well as creating poverty and exclusion anew, the worst effects of the housing crisis are often felt by those already vulnerable or marginalised. For example, Traveller’s housing has been described as a humanitarian crisis Expert Group Review of Traveller Accommodation: Discussion. (2021), yet local authorities underspent allocated funding by €72million from 2008-2019 (Joint Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community, 2021). Long-term housing security is required, not only for those people who are homeowners, but also for the many people who rely on rented accommodation and other forms of accommodation.

Housing and Psychology

Housing is a major determinant of health and wellbeing (Rolfe et al., 2020; World Health Organization, 2018). There is robust empirical evidence for the negative effects of housing disadvantage—e.g., precariousness, housing quality, overcrowding, mortgage arrears, threat of eviction—on mental health. Such negative outcomes include depression, anxiety, chronic stress, suicide, worse psychological health, and worse physical health (Singh et al., 2019; Vásquez-Vera et al., 2017). We also know that chronic stress contributes to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Precarity in housing and employment often go hand-in-hand; this ‘double precarity’ also has deleterious mental health effects (Bentley et al., 2019)—effects which are most intensely felt by those at the bottom of the income distribution. 

Homelessness is associated with high prevalence of mental health difficulties, including substance use and psychosis (Fazel et al., 2008) as well as higher prevalence of acquired brain injury. Homelessness can be a complex phenomenon, but we know that housing-provision interventions can improve both physical and mental health, and do so cost-effectively (Hunter et al., 2017; Kuehn, 2019; Onapa et al., 2022). Psychologists working within the public health system see first-hand the physical and mental health consequences of unstable housing arrangements. The effects of the housing crisis are wide-ranging. Here, we focus primarily on children, families, wellbeing across the lifespan, and persons with disabilities. 

Child Development and Family Health and Wellbeing

There are approximately 3,000 children living in emergency accommodation in Ireland, and thousands more in unsuitable, overcrowded, unstable conditions (Barnardos, 2018).  For many of the families who live in unstable housing, their access to health services and education is complicated by moving between different catchment areas and service providers. It is a deeply destabilising experience to move between GP, health services and multiple schools. 

In children, there are considerable physical and mental health consequences of living in unstable accommodation, particularly in hotels and B&B’s.  An example: a family of six (two adults and four children under 10 years) were accommodated in one hotel room for months with no cooking facilities. All four children are now showing signs of developmental delays and attend paediatric primary care services for psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and dietetics. Their developmental delays are referred to as an inorganic failure to thrive, meaning delays are caused by deprivation. This is not an isolated case and reports from Temple Street Children’s Hospital have documented the impact of inadequate housing on children’s development.  In their Report on the Impact of Homelessness on Children the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs (2019) recommended that the Government should examine enumerating the right to housing in the Constitution. The Joint Committee recommended that the Government end the practice of accommodating homeless families in hotels and B&Bs on the basis that living in cramped living conditions has a destructive impact on the physical and mental health of children. 

Insecure tenures are a source of significant stress and disruption for children and families. Early childhood is a critical period for physical, emotional, social and behavioural development. Parental stress during those critical years of development is a risk factor for the development of life-long difficulties in children. Children of stressed parents are at higher risk of mental health problems by age 3 years. Mental health problems in children manifest as fearfulness, social withdrawal, irritability, over-activity, temper outbursts, and oppositional, non-compliant behaviour. Prospective longitudinal studies have shown that over time, such difficulties are associated with poor academic, employment, and health trajectories (Hattangadi et al., 2020).  

Having regard to social objectives by providing families with stable tenures is a priority need and should be provided for in legislation. We support the Joint Committee recommendation that the Government should reduce the reliance on the private rental market for housing provision for homeless families. 

Wellbeing Across the Lifespan

Insecure housing and the fear of homelessness is a source of anxiety and desperation across the lifespan in our society. The search for a stable home when there is none to be found and the threat of eviction can be all-consuming. The threat of homelessness can force us to tolerate untenable situations, and trap us in psychologically damaging environments, unable to escape exploitative landlords, difficult family dynamics or abusive partners (Safe Ireland Submission to Oireachtas Justice Committee: Women’s Domestic Abuse Refuges, 2021). Moving out of the family home in young adulthood and becoming a homeowner are fundamental rites of passage and status symbols from which many are now excluded. Unfairly, the social exclusion of homelessness is often associated with feelings of shame and a sense of personal failure. Feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness are also common among those who reasonably expect to remain homeless or insecurely housed for many years to come. Financial hardship, retirement, unemployment, and/or impairment or disability present an enormous problem for older adults, particularly in the context of extraordinary and ever-climbing market rents. Under current conditions, this problem will only grow in the coming years. Generation Rent, including adults presently in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, will age into precipitous, population-level housing-insecurity at typical retirement ages. This is a generation that in many cases cannot now resort to home-ownership due to the length of mortgage terms, will not have the means to pay market rents past retirement, and yet will have long-term housing needs. Housing includes, but is not necessarily limited to, independent housing and ageing-in-place facilitated by social care as appropriate to meet the needs, dignity, and human rights of older adults. Adequate housing will ensure that thriving, multigenerational communities are protected and sustainable, and that human dignity is promoted into old age. This will also provide for the long-term economic and social security and sustainability of the State. 

Housing and Disability

For people with a disability and autistic people, housing is an important determinant of health, wellbeing, and autonomy. Absent of sufficient, appropriate social housing, reliance on the private rental market in its current form is not feasible for many persons with disabilities and their families, who already disproportionately face poverty, economic inequality, and social marginalisation. Emergency accommodation is unsuitable for families and is especially challenging for families who have a child with a disability or autism, with experiences of severe psychological difficulties in carers and behavioural and developmental regression in children (O’Donovan et al., 2020). Families exposed to market forces often find that rents are out of their reach and that landlords are unwilling to accept HAP. Supporting adults with disabilities to live outside of congregated settings—in line with human rights and public policy—have been hampered by lack of funding and poor statutory agency approaches, while insecure tenancy tends to render independent living in the private rental market unsustainable for people with disabilities (O’Donovan et al., 2020). Inappropriate and unstable housing poses difficulties for older adults with disabilities living with ageing carers. They are less likely to have the social, cultural and economic resources of their non-disabled peers and may be at a distinct disadvantage when trying to navigate the housing market independently (O’Donovan et al., 2020). 

Housing: A Human Right 

Internationally, a universal right to housing right is clearly enumerated–a person having the ‘right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of [themselves and their] family, including … housing’ (UDHR §25). Ireland has also ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which contains a right to housing. Similarly, to ensure adequate living standards for children, states should ‘provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to… housing’ (UNCRC §27.3). The European Charter of Fundamental Rights sets out that ‘to combat social exclusion and poverty, the Union recognises and respects the right to social and housing assistance so as to ensure a decent existence for all those who lack sufficient resources’ (§34). And yet, we are experiencing an immense social crisis.

Numerous EU counterparts have constitutional housing rights, and moving toward a rights-based system, with public provision backed by constitutional rights, promises to help current and future generations. As outlined by Mercy Law Resource Centre (2019) and in submissions to the Housing Commission’s 2022 Conference (Whyte et al., 2022), constitutionalising housing rights would act as an imperative for responsible, humanistic public policy to meet basic human needs. It would confer obligations on the State, and such obligations would be practically enforceable, unlike many international treaties. It would also empower citizens in the pursuit of basic human rights and the needs of shelter, security, and privacy, and as Hearne (in Whyte et al., 2022) stated, empower the State to achieve appropriate objectives. It would serve to rebalance constitutional rights, with additional emphasis on positive liberties. It would also serve as a ‘mission statement’ (Ó Cinnéide, 2022, in Whyte et al., 2022).

A referendum on the right to housing would likely give effect to democratic wishes. The Convention on the Constitution (2014) recommended, by a wide margin, enhanced constitutional protection of economic, social, and cultural rights; 84% of Convention participants supported constitutional enumeration of housing rights. A constitutional right to housing has also been well supported in public opinion polling. In combination with resultant policy change and improved housing outcomes, this would likely bolster social cohesion and solidarity. 

The Housing Commission might also consider that a right to housing should be broadly conceived, considering, inter alia, rights to home ownership, to security of tenure for renters, and to social housing. A constitutional right to housing ought to be inclusive of all persons and the needs of varied communities. Particular attention ought to be paid to including and meeting the needs of children and families, older adults, persons with impairments and disabilities, Traveller and Roma communities, young adults, students, refugees, and marginalised communities that may be more likely to rely on a constitutional right to housing. As an attendant issue, the right to housing may need to be considered holistically in terms of environmental sustainability. 

Conclusion

Current housing policy, practice, and legislation in Ireland need attention. The establishment of a Commission on Housing is a positive development in working towards some long-term strategy in this area in order to meet the most basic of needs (i.e., shelter). The PSC network support a Referendum on Housing in order to achieve stability and security for those in rented accommodation (particularly people accessing rental accommodation through the public and social housing systems). Financialization and marketization of public and social housing has not served the public and there are significant physical and mental health consequences of this current, deeply flawed system. The role of the State in the provision of housing requires close examination, consideration and reform. A broad lens is required here; one which considers human rights, physical and mental health, civic participation, and a vision for Irish society.   

Psychologists for Social Change

Psychologists for Social Change (PSC) is a network of over eighty applied psychologists, academics, therapists and others across Ireland. We apply psychological theory to public and policy debates. Our commentary and analysis regarding a proposed Referendum on Housing is based on our knowledge of human behaviour, mental processes, and population health. We make this submission pursuant to our expertise, and because we encounter the housing-related stress and distress that people are experiencing. We welcome the Government and Housing Commission’s efforts to improve the current system. PSC can be contacted at irelandpsc@gmail.com

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