There is a crisis within a crisis for disabled people who face increasingly long periods on housing waiting lists, with many left homeless or in unsuitable accommodation.

Disabled people represent 27% of the homeless population even though they make up just 13.5% of the population. Over 2,400 disabled people continue to live in congregated settings and more than 1,300 people under-65 are living in nursing homes.

Our team will expose difficulties faced in the private market by disabled people as well as lack of accessibility and availability of social housing and emergency accommodation across the country.

WHAT YOUR FUNDING SUPPORTS

The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities gave disabled people the right to “to live in the community, with choices equal to others”. This was ratified by Ireland in 2018. An essential part of enabling this right is the ability to avail of personal assistance services.

We will investigate access to services provided by the HSE and speak to disabled people to find out if these are meeting their needs to live independently.

We will also meet with disabled people living in inappropriate accommodation to find out how their lives are impacted.

A new National Housing Strategy for Disabled People was launched at the start of 2022 but advocacy organisations say that it is not sufficiently resourced for delivery. We will use Freedom of Information (FOI) to see what is going on behind the schemes in resourcing the strategy.

Want to see this investigation happen? Click the 'Fund This Proposal' button.

You can contact us at [email protected] and find out how we work here. Our investigations are sourced from and crowdfunded by the public.