Speaking on Déise Today Fr. Peter McVerry has come out against comments made by former head of the Government Housing Agency Conor Skehan that some families are "gaming the system" by claiming to be homeless in order to access social housing quicker.
Skehan has claimed that this is distorting the scale of the severity of the homelessness crisis stating "We unwittingly created a problem by prioritising self-declared homelessness above all other types of housing need, which created a distortion in the waiting list system and may have encouraged people to game the system."
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/fr-peter-mcverry-on-homlessness-on-deise-today
McVerry while talking with Eamon Keane said in response that "while every single systems is open to abuse that does not mean that we accuse everyone of doing so."
McVerry also expressed concerns about how the severity of the homelessness crisis is being deliberately played down by the government in an effort to not make it a "hot potato issue".
He then goes on to say that in his opinion "this country is run by the wealthy, for the wealthy and everybody knows it except the wealthy who think it's their entitlement."
You can listen to the full interview above and for more stories like this make sure to listen to Déise Today only on WLR.
