Commitment to keep housing Longford families

To date the Clúid Housing Association has delivered almost 140 homes in Longford, a figure published by the association early this week. According to Mick Concannon, Clúid’s Regional Director in Longford, there is a lot more work yet to do.

“Despite a challenging environment and a dramatic cutback in public funding, Clúid has found that the key to delivering these homes is through innovative schemes and this is a theme we are eager to continue,” he said in a statement to the Leader.

The association has also launched its 2011 Annual Report. Appropriately titled ‘Clúid is’, the document highlights Clúid’s mission and commitment to deliver homes to those “in dire need”.

One such recently launched project was the Mortgage-to-Rent scheme, which will help people who are facing repossession to stay in their home. Under the scheme, the home is bought by a housing association such as Clúid and the family stays in their home as a tenant, paying an affordable rent to the housing association. Clúid was involved in the design and piloting of Mortgage-to-Rent and believes that the scheme could rescue up to 3,500 households on the brink of losing their home.

“It is pioneering schemes like this that will meet housing needs in Ireland. With 808 households on social housing waiting lists in Longford county, many of us know of a family member or a friend in dire need of a home. Despite all the challenges, our staff have never been more determined to deliver good-quality, affordable housing to those who need it,” said Mr Concannon.

Clúid is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that develops and provides high-quality, affordable, rented social housing for people off the local authority housing waiting list.

The vision of Clúid is that of a society where everyone has a great place to live. Clúid aims to achieve this by providing quality housing and services to enable people to create homes and thriving communities.

Since its establishment in 1994, Clúid has made available a total of 3,578 houses and apartments, providing housing to low income families and single people, older people, people with a disability and Traveller families all over Ireland.