Rent hike forces family out of their home

A family is planning to stage a protest outside the Social Protection Minister's office on Wednesday to highlight their housing struggle.

 

Gwen Connell and her three children were forced out of their Dublin home two weeks ago after their rent was raised by €400.

 

“A couple of weeks before Christmas an estate agent turned up at the door and said the landlord had sent him around. I thought the landlord was going to sell the house, so I rang him and he said the rent would be going up from €900 to €1,300.”

 

The maximum rent allowance she was able to get from social welfare was €950 and because of this, she had to abandon the house that was her family's home for three years. Since then, the house hunt has been incredible difficult for her.

 

“It has been a nightmare. Nowhere was accepting rent allowance and even a two-bed place is costing €1,200.”

 

She contacted her local authority in Fingal for help but was told they could only help if she was homeless: “The council said to get back to them when I was homeless. I explained that I had three children, but they said their hands were tied, and there was nothing they could do until I was actually homeless.”

 

At the moment, she is about 1,000th on the housing list, but Gwen doesn't want to declare herself homeless as she's worried about the effect on her children.

 

She has now been forced to split her family up; Gwen is staying with a friend, while her eldest daughter stays with her grandmother and her two youngest girls live with their father.

 

The family plans on staging a protest outside Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton’s Dublin’s office on Wednesday to highlight their plight.