Housing is 'the most urgent set of issues' for the next government

Thu, Feb 27, 2020

We are, once again, in political stalemate. In the meantime, the mechanisms of the State continue as they were under a caretaker government. The problem, of course, is that 'as they were' is hardly sufficient.

Exit polls show that 'change' - a problematically ambiguous term at the best of times - was a driving factor for many voters, and that is the one thing that cannot be delivered until a new government is formed. Putting flesh on this call for 'change', housing is the most urgent issue for any incoming cabinet. Or rather, Insider would argue, the most urgent set of issues, as the term contains multitudes.

We have, perhaps most obviously, a problem with homelessness. In November there were more than 10,000 homeless people in this country - we do not know the figures for December or January, as the Department of Housing has, inexplicably, missed the deadlines to publish them. Almost 60 per cent of those were families, and the remainder adults without dependents. That number is up almost 5,000 in four years.