Inclusion Ireland - Housing for People with Intellectual Disabilities, the Lack of Supports for Independent Living - November 2019

Inclusion Ireland’s “Housing for People with Intellectual Disabilities – November 2019” explores the current housing situation for people with intellectual disabilities in Ireland. The paper examines housing policy for housing in Ireland in relation to disability, the difficulties people with intellectual disabilities experience accessing houses and the supports needed for people to live independently in the community.

Link to document

The National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability

“The Government’s National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2011-2016, extended to 2020, sets out the broad framework for the delivery of housing for people with disabilities through mainstream housing policy.

The vision set out is to:
facilitate access for people with disabilities to the appropriate range of housing and related support services, delivered in an integrated and sustainable manner, which promotes equality of opportunity, individual choice, and independent living.

The strategy has overarching aims of:

  • supporting people with disabilities to live independently in their own homes rather than having to move into residential care settings.
  • providing person centred community-based housing solutions.
  • ensuring mainstream assessment of individual housing needs.
  • providing frameworks and protocols for effective interagency cooperation and responses.
  • and providing a delivery, monitoring and review framework.

The National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2011-2016 forms part of a policy framework, that includes A Vision for Change – the Government’s mental health policy, the Report of the Working Group on Congregated Settings and the Value for Money Review of Disability Services.

It supported Government policy to move over 4,000 people with disabilities to transfer from residential institutional care (including congregated settings) to more appropriate living arrangements within local communities by 2019. It is likely that many of these people will require social housing supports and a significant number will also require tenancy supports to assist in the maintenance of tenancies. A high proportion of these people have very specific accommodation requirements.” Social Housing Strategy 2020, DECLG.

National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2011 – 2016

Inclusion Ireland developed an easy to read version of the National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2016.