Transcript Caren Gallagher

MS GALLAGHER:  Thanks very much Alison.  I'm Caren Gallagher director of policy with Irish Council for Social Housing, ICSH is an umbrella body for housing associations in Ireland.

Housing associations provide about 30,000 homes across the country for families, for older people, for people with disabilities and for formerly homeless people.  In terms of how that 30,000 breaks down, quite a significant proportion of that is that type of supported housing, so the sector has a very good track record in delivering housing and supports for people that need them.

As Conor Skehan said at the start of today there's a big focus, and the Minister as well, in ramping up social housing delivery and the sector has a big part to play in that, we do have a significant development pipeline for the next three years.

What's important about housing associations is that they provide more than bricks and mortar and you will have heard that from Conor this morning, in terms of how we approach building communities and hopefully what I can set out in the next few minutes how we try and do that and what worked in terms of some of the more successful schemes in terms of focus on people with disabilities.

So in terms of that role I suppose we have been identified as the main provider of housing for people moving out of congregated setting as well, the Minister mentioned 10 million and there is an expectation in terms of delivery and an important part is not just the capital funding, but the supports, the health supports and community supports that are there to help people live independently.

In terms of social housing, there is a shortage of social housing in general, the 90,000 on the waiting list, but it's even more acute for people with disabilities, because there is very specific and often individual design, location and support requirements that put people with disabilities at a considerable disadvantage in relation to those that don't have those needs.

We welcome the fact that rebuilding Ireland does affirm the national housing strategy for people with disabilities.

That's a snapshot across the sector.  Last year housing associations provided over 2,400 homes, quite a significant number of those were acquisitions and through the current expenditure programme.

Really in terms of delivery of housing for people with disabilities, what works best is new build construction because you can design to meet people's needs and unfortunately the focus has been in acquiring properties from the private market, but we would be saying if we had access to the land, in partnership with local authorities, new build is what works best there.

So in terms of offering a choice really, I don't need to reiterate what has been said before in that the homes and neighbourhoods in which people live really are key to maintaining and enabling people and their independence.  There are a variety of housing models for people with disabilities, delivered by housing associations, a lot of them do encompass the innovation good practice and what's important is the inter‑agency collaboration and importantly the commitment of supports.  So the way we see it is it's not just one type of housing that might work in a scheme, it's providing a continuum of housing provision to cater for a variety of individual circumstances, so there are choices out there for people with disabilities in mainstream housing and supported housing, and bespoke designed housing where required.

I do have a video and I'm hoping it will work.  This is just a snapshot of some of it.

(Video playing)  "The brief was about integration and lifetime homes and having properties easily adaptable to people's current needs and future needs.  We also very much wanted a community environment where neighbours and friends can drop in and support each other.

It changed my life a lot, I can do things I never thought I could do on my own.  I can turn on and off switches, I can turn on and off lights, I can open the curtains, I can open windows and I can do a lot.  Since it's an enclosed area I go across to my neighbours quite a lot, you're not in the weather like the rain and snow, you can pop up to your neighbours if you want.

What did you think when you first seen the apartments?

They were lovely apartments.  Now I didn't think they were going to be that big."

MS GALLAGHER:  Those are just a snapshot of some of the schemes that were recognised in our community housing award last year.  The Clanmil housing in South Dublin County Council has ten apartments and an on‑site office and it does encompass some of the Universal Design concepts in there.

I think in terms of what has worked for organisations and our members in terms of what helps Dublin that supportive community, at the very beginning, it's not just about getting the scheme built up, designed, built and up and running, it's starting the conversation at an early stage with community, there's joint consultation with local authority, it's trying to bring the neighbourhood in at an early stage in terms of that sense of ownership of the scheme, in terms of belonging and that integration in terms of the scheme.

This is another example, HAIL, our Housing Association for Integrated Living, Avondale Court in Blanchardstown, this is 17 homes, one, two and three‑bedroom homes, they supported a number of tenants and some with mental health difficulties to move into independent living from various institutional and care settings and I suppose in terms of ‑‑ one of the elements of this has been to encourage that the wider community development and that tenant and community experience.

So in terms of what has worked, it's been very deliberate in terms of the approach to build a supportive community and sustainable community.  There are, as I said at the outset, there would have been communication with local residents and community residents at the very outset, at planning stage where it was a new build.  Communication with the tenants ongoing and one of the things I think that's really important is where, especially in the new build project, where we can at the outset know ‑‑ if we know who it's going to be housed in the scheme at the very outset there's nothing to say that that home can't be designed around that individual and I think that's something that we would hope local authorities will start to do more and more, so that the homes that are built just aren't, I suppose can reflect the needs and choices of the individuals.

In terms of integration of tenants, its kind of building in intentional conveniences is how I like to think of it, where the design of the scheme is facilitating people to bump into each other, where the communities looking out as well as in.  And balancing that privacy as well as the public spaces into a thoughtfully designed community, and then a thoughtful supportive community and offering those opportunities for engagement.

In a couple of those schemes as well there would have been an on‑site office where you would have had housing officers and caretakers in some of the schemes.  There are specifically built into some of the schemes community facilities that would have just been for activities for tenants, but you would have services coming in that would be accessible to the wider community and that inter‑generational connection is there as well.

And where our members have come together as well I think is in partnerships where you would have the mainstream housing providers, larger, respond, Clúid, larger housing associations coming together with a specialist housing provider, so it's not just this block of housing, this special needs housing, it's integrated into the mainstream options in a way that doesn't necessarily identify the housing as for people with disability or special needs housing, that's really important.

So in terms of final thoughts, I suppose I've widened it out because I think we need to move away from thinking of, from viewing people with disabilities primarily as people with special needs housing, to just an approach that sees accommodation needs being addressed by the continuum of housing provision and we need to join up the dots, Conor from the Housing Agency talked about the silos that we work in and that's something, the housing scheme for older people in Dublin City Council at the minute is a project that is encompassing some of the cross‑departmental approach and the supports for older people, but there's nothing to say that that same model can't work for a housing scheme for people with disabilities.  And I would hope that's what comes out of that process, because it is about getting help, the HSE and Department of Housing, as well as local authority and housing associations around the table to make the mainstream housing options and choices, to work with communities, creating socially engaged communities and in terms of the regulation as well, that sort of, where people require a degree of care and support in their homes, I think that what's really important is that well I think we welcome regulation, there is a disconnect there at the moment, where the lack of domiciliary care standards has created a vacuum where the default position is to register homes as designated centres, that's regulated under HIQA in a medical model, and all the work that everybody and a lot of people in this room are doing to help people and enable people moving out of institutions, is kind of undermined a little bit whenever they are registered as designated centres and that institutional type regulation is wrapped around them once again.  That's one of the areas we need to think about.  Because that's someone's home and that's where we started off at the very, the opening address today.

So in terms of the community development and supports, I think that's key really in terms of that experience, encouraging partnerships wherever we can and working against this implementation deficit disorder, I think we're great at ‑‑ all our reports and strategies, but it's actually implementing them on the ground and showing schemes and talking to Ciaran, his experience and just seeing what works on the group and actually increasing housing choices for people with disabilities and thinking that creative thinking and responses is something hopefully I know a lot of people in the room are doing, but in terms of increasing the options for people and creating the supportive communities that we need.  Thanks very much.