PETER McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, has announced a major new construction programme of social housing units. It comes as the charity published its annual report for 2019.
In Limerick, Peter McVerry Trust worked with 382 people in 2019 across its housing and homeless services and had 74 social housing units which it owned, leased, or managed in the county at the end of 2019.
Peter McVerry Trust’s housing delivering in Limerick was second only to Dublin. The charity focuses solely on housing delivery and development in Limerick and does not offer homeless hostels in an effort to avoid duplicating existing services.
Peter McVerry Trust’s annual report shows that the charity was active across 21 local authorities at the end of 2019. The report also shows that the charity worked with 6,184 people across Ireland last year.
The report also covers key areas of Peter McVerry Trust’s services, including its Housing First work across 11 counties, as well as the charity’s new second-level specialist Learning Centres in Dublin.
Pat Doyle, CEO of Peter McVerry Trust, said “Last year was very busy for us, with many key developments within the organisation. Among those was the significant expansion of our Housing First work as we secured new contracts in Dublin, the Midlands, the Mid-East and the North East regions which will see us delivering 61% of the national Housing First programme.”
“The launch of our annual report today ties in with our goal to grow and expand our Housing First work. The single biggest barrier facing the roll-out of Housing First is the lack of available one-bedroom homes across our cities and towns.
“That is why we are trying to play a more active role in supplying those homes directly with funding from the local authorities and the Department of Housing.” he said.
Construction Pipeline
Nationally over the next 12 months, the charity will deliver over 210 social housing units via construction, leasing, re-use of empty buildings and acquisition. In Limerick, the charity is aiming to grow its housing delivery through a combination of leasing, acquisition and schemes like the repair and lease scheme which targets long term vacant homes.
Construction projects will deliver new social housing units in locations including, Dublin, Limerick, and Kildare with over 70% of those units due to be one-bedroom apartments.
“This pipeline of new homes will see us commence several construction projects over the next 12 months. Most of these new homes will be in Dublin, but we also have construction projects in counties Limerick and Kildare as well as smaller projects across a range of other counties.”
“We want to ensure we create high-quality homes that are sustainable in both design and location. Our goal is to deliver several small scale projects, scattered across cities and large towns, to avoid large concentration in any one community.”
The charity said it also expects 2020 to be its best year yet on housing delivery, as it ramps up social housing provision by reusing long term vacant units as social housing.
