Homeless in 2 weeks - what will the council do?

woejus

Asking on behalf of someone I know :

Unmortageable family (wife, husband & 4 kids, one with special needs).
Living with relative in large house on informal basis, south Dublin. Kids in school there.

Relations between homeowner and family have soured dramatically and now homeowner "wants them out in 14 days". Written notice given. It's untenable, they cannot stay there; they have nowhere else to go.

Your man works but has no money to get into rental market. He's been trying to apply for HAP I think, or some other subvention. He hasn't been successful in this for whatever reason.

What happens in this situation? What can DLR CoCo do to accomodate the family? Do they get involved in the rental market? Do they have emergency houses they can give out on a short term basis?

Any advice appreciated.

insert name here 123

http://hap.ie/homeless-hap/

Loveinapril

The family will need to contact the Dublin Region Homeless Exective or Focus Ireland. They will likely be put in a family hub or B and B. There are no short term emergency houses for situations like this, and if there was, they would be totally full given the current crisis. It is an awful situation to be in.

Immaculata

woejus wrote: »

What happens in this situation? What can DLR CoCo do to accomodate the family? Do they get involved in the rental market? Do they have emergency houses they can give out on a short term basis?

Your friend should, as soon as possible, contact the homeless outreach officer in the housing department of their local council and ask for assistance.

Is there no way your friend can negotiate with the relative who owns the current accommodation? At last get a delay on the fourteen days? Although if your friend and family have been living there with the family member/home owner and without a lease, i.e. as licensees, the family member is already being relatively generous as I think licensees can legally be asked to leave with only a day's notice.

DLR CoCo's homeless outreach officer will do his or her best to find the family some temporary accommodation. As an earlier reply said, that'll probably be a B&B or similar.

Also ask for advice regarding HAP. The outreach officer can look into why it hasn't worked out so far.

Does your friend have any other family members or friends who could accommodate your friend and family, even for a short while?

As one of the kids has special needs, depending on the situation and the kid, it might be worthwhile to contact the public health nurse to see if there's any respite care available at all for this kid in particular.

woejus

Immaculata wrote: »

Your friend should...

Thank you for your considered reply, very helpful. Could be a bit of head-in-the-sand psychology here, but I'll pass on the details.

Thanks again, you are very kind, as are the other posters who replied.

spaceHopper

Do they live with the owner of the house or is it seperate house. This makes a big difference. Have either of the parents been hostile to the owner.

Have they applied for and been refused HAP? Is are they looking into it but not doing anything about it? They have kids to look after so they need to be proactive.

If they don't live with the owner then they are tenants even if its informal they can appeal the notice to leave to the RTB with in 28 days but probably should do it immediately. This would put the breaks on leaving for while to give them time.

They should already be on the social housing list but should apply now. Also apply for HAP and anything else the DLR recommend.

woejus

I feel there was a "head in the sand" thing going on, but they seem to be rolling with DLR Coco now.

nowt as queer as folk

Thanks!