merrion street

Ministers Simon Coveney and Damien English today (2 August) announced the allocation of €49,000 to the Union of Students of Ireland (USI) to support their appointment of a Student Housing Officer, to help identify additional accommodation, including digs and rooms in private homes, to ease the pressure on securing rented accommodation as we approach the next academic year.

This funding comes in the wake of the recent launch of Rebuilding Ireland, the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, which identified the expanded provision of student accommodation as a key area to be addressed within the Plan’s five pillars to tackle our national housing challenges.

The Action Plan identifies the importance of providing dedicated and additional student accommodation to avoid putting additional pressures on the private rental sector, particularly in and around the many universities and third-level institutions in urban areas. To provide a comprehensive policy context for this action, the Government has committed to the development of a national student accommodation strategy in the first half of 2017, led by the Department of Education and Skills in conjunction with the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government (DHPCLG) and other key stakeholders.

However, as an immediate response, the Plan also committed to providing funding support for a dedicated Student Housing Officer to work with the USI, local authorities, AHBs and housing providers as well as others stakeholders, to identify and expand short-term capacity enhancing measures in the student accommodation sector and to assist students in finding appropriate accommodation. Funding from this Department is now being made available to USI on a once-off basis to support the “digs” service they run (www.homes.usi.ie), which last year assisted a total of 600 students to find suitable housing.

In announcing the funding, Minister Coveney highlighted the value and potential of this service: “The USI digs service has already proved very beneficial and I want to recognise their great work in this core area of student welfare. But from our engagement with the USI, we both believe that their initiative here has greater potential to identify new accommodation not currently available for renting. This new funding support from my Department will allow the Union to reach that potential in supporting the student accommodation sector, and providing greater choice for both new and existing third-level students.”

The €49,000 funding will support the appointment of a Student Housing Project Manager, employed by the USI for a period of nine months. This new Project Manager will liaise with local authorities, AHBs and housing providers and will also manage the USI ‘Homes for Study’ campaign and related initiatives. The role will also include:

· coordinating activities for member organisations in the area of student accommodation;
· overseeing key functions of the www.homes.usi.ie service, including a ‘search for property’ database, a student-focussed ‘find a roommate’ platform, a ‘find a tenant’ service, an on-line digs database;
· driving strategic promotional activities, including social media;
· designing, organising and conducting relevant research on student housing across Ireland;
· providing advice and support to a network of student officers in helping students to find appropriate full-term accommodation; and
· working with others to improve and operate dispute resolution procedures for students in digs accommodation.

Minister English added: “We have moved quickly to put this new resource in place to support work on student accommodation, in line with what was promised in the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness. This is an indication of our intent regarding early implementation of the actions under this Plan. The activities planned for the new Student Housing Project Manager, working with the USI, will bring benefits to the important area of student accommodation and all of these individual actions under the Action Plan, if tackled progressively, will bring us to an overall better housing situation nationally.

“As well as moving forward on a wide range of developmental and promotional actions, both Minister Coveney and I are aware the USI aims to increase from 600 to 1,000 the number of students who find housing due to their digs service. I’m delighted therefore that our Department has taken this real and immediate action as early as we could to allocate this funding. It will enable this work to move ahead right away, bearing in mind the urgent student accommodation needs that are arising, including the forthcoming announcement of the CAO offers for the 2016/2017 academic year.”