Bosnian families who came here legally are trapped in private rented accommodation with little hope of being housed by local authorities, according to a new report. From Bosnia to Ireland's Private Rented Sector paints a glum picture of the circumstances of Bosnian refugees.
There are more than 1,000 Bosnians in Ireland living in about 300 households. Almost all live in the private rented sector and are receiving a rent allowance. Many are caught in a poverty trap because they cannot get work which would pay enough to compensate them for the loss of their allowance. Some families have had to move house several times because, even with the allowance, they cannot meet escalating rent demands.
The report is published by Clann Housing Association Ltd, a body promoted by the Government's Refugee Agency to respond to the housing needs of refugees.
Most Bosnian refugees came here during the 1990s under a Government programme, starting in 1992 (some are still arriving under a family reunification programme). At the time, house prices and local authority waiting lists were far lower than today.
The Bosnians believed they would be returning home when the war ended and for this reason they did not go onto local authority housing lists. But when the war ended in 1995, many found their homes were now in the Bosnian Serb-led Republika Srpska and were either occupied by Serbs or had been destroyed. While there is some repatriation, it is "painfully slow", Mr Haris Bijedic, of the Bosnian Community Development Project, told The Irish Times yesterday.
By the late 1990s, the housing crisis in Ireland was at a peak. The refugees' chances of getting local authority housing had almost vanished. By 1997, only 10 Bosnian families were in local authority housing. Most refugee households are small, with only one or two children and this also reduces their chances of being housed, it says.
The report also estimates only 15 per cent of heads of household earn enough to be able to buy their own homes. In any event, a quarter of those surveyed were aged 45 or over then they arrived "and are simply too old to purchase homes based on the current mortgage-repayment criteria".
It concludes starkly that "the majority of Bosnian refugees in Ireland will not realistically, particularly in light of the present housing situation, be able to provide accommodation from their own means".
The report urges the Government to draw up a policy on the housing of refugees who "arrive in a country with no extended family or friends to rely on, no history of residency, no capital, and in many cases without the relevant language or training to access employment". For this reason, it argues that refugees have special needs.
Housing associations (non-profit bodies) should be given the support they need to address the housing problems of refugees, it recommends, arguing that the private rented housing on which most Bosnians depend "is characterised by insecurity of tenure" and that the frequency of moves that many have to make, due to rent increases, disrupts children and hinders integration.
It also warns that "any response to the housing needs of refugees must be developed within an overall housing strategy, which deals with the housing problems of everyone within our population". This is because many disadvantaged Irish people "see themselves denied resources they believe are going to refugees rather than to them".