The Vienna Model : Housing for the 21st Century. Visions for the Future. Podcast 4

In this the last episode in our 4 part series The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century we're bringing out the stories and conversations of those most affected by housing and homelessness, in particular community voices from St Michael's Estate in Dublin. St Michael's Estate has had a long, protracted and painful experience of regeneration with over a decade lost due to the recession. 

In this series we're showcasing the seminars that took place in April 2019 as part of a discussion around solutions for the housing crisis in Ireland, particularly in Dublin. In this podcast you hear Eilish Comerford, a community worker from St Michael's Family Resource Centre in St Michael's Estate who is also part of a grassroots activism network around housing. Eilish talks of the need for new funding sources to ensure the affordability of these new cost rental homes planned for St Michael's Estate and we hear from the European Investment Bank on its role as a potential funding source to secure affordability housing. 

Cormac Murphy is the Head of the EIB here and he described the new Land Development Agency, the LDA as a game changer in providing affordable housing. Ireland, he says, has a profile with just 10% social housing and that's out of step with other European cities and this change in models and funding is critical to making an attractive, sustainable city that works for all. nterestingly we also hear from David Joyce, a solicitor who works with Mercy Law Resource Centre, who works in the field of housing and homelessness, and is himself from the traveller community, who responded to the discussion by drawing on the comments that Michaela Kauer from Vienna made earlier ( and in Podcast 1) that in Vienna housing is for all, and is invested in heavily because it is seen as a human right that underscores society. 'We stigmatised social housing', he said and stigmatised the people who live there. 'The provision of homes as a right should be our target', he said. 

Rita Fagan, a community activist, who is also with the St Michael's Regeneration Team, made the case for a fairer, more equal city and for commitment and action to provide fair and equitable housing for people in the city. 'Who gets to live in the city?' she asked and pointed to places like The Liberties, where she comes from, where local and long rooted communities are being replaced by student accommodation and hotels. 'A living city needs local people', she said underscoring her support for cost rental housing but warning she, and many in the community, feared that the State did not have the will, and commitment, to implement change.

If you want to find out more about the speakers and the topics in this series go to www.housingmodeldublin.ie and for our full channel go to www.thisiswherewelive.ie