The political frame of a housing crisis: Campaigning for the right to housing in Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article examines the politicized discourse employed by housing movement to shift long-standing narratives around housing, that attempt to shape the national debate over Ireland’s housing crisis. Amid issues of housing insecurity and affordability, homelessness in particular has become a hotly debated issue over the past decade and images of increasing family homelessness as a consequence of the housing crisis have sparked public outrage. Campaigners and activists have challenged the government’s market-based policy responses and demanded housing that is accessible to those who need it. The results show that while the narratives used by activists to change housing policy were somewhat successful in raising the issue of homelessness as a housing problem, the movement was less effective in motivating public concerns around housing as a fundamental right and in building a larger mass housing movement.

KEYWORDS:

• Housing politics
• housing struggles
• consequence of housing movements
• right to housing
• narratives

1. Introduction

The current housing crisis is a dominant theme in the political landscape. This crisis is directly connected to the run-up to the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008, which saw the increasing financialization of housing with the heavy entry of institutional investors in national housing markets as complex and evolving phenomenon that is transforming residential housing in an asset to be traded for the maximum possible profit. This is the state of affairs in several European countries, where housing become an attractive asset class for investors, supported by a range of government policies that boosts house and rent prices and reduce affordability while housing assistance benefits guarantee stable returns for investors (Gabor & Khol, 2022). In Ireland, this crisis is clearly visible in the homelessness, housing insecurity and housing unaffordability which have reached unprecedented levels and dominated the public debate and news headlines. Organized civil society groups focused on housing issues have been pressing the government to act, demanding more state intervention in the real estate market, such as the construction of more social housing, rent control and better housing support.

In such a context, the housing crisis has provided a breeding ground for housing movements organizations that combine different types of discontented and dispossessed groups in progressive coalitions, networks, collectives and neighbourhood-based groups that campaign for the right to housing that legitimize and stimulate social movement campaigns and activities. The increasing number of families experiencing homelessness is part of the activist narrative pushing for an agenda that prioritizes state-led housing policies and criticizes the contemporary trend of housing financialization. In Ireland, organizations involved in housing have increasingly pushed forward an agenda that proposes a solution to the situation of the homeless pass through the establishment of the right to housing through the inclusion of the right to housing, which would demand an amendment of the constitution.

The field of social movement studies has seen an increasing interest in the politics of housing, which usually involves collective organizing people struggling against precarious and insecure housing. Housing movements not only produce political opportunities for individuals to fight housing injustice but can also impact the realities of local politics and policy. Part of this social movement research on housing has noted the meaning constructions, utilized by movement participants adherents via narratives and discourses created to mobilize people around specific issues, which are key communication tool for advancing social change.

Taking into consideration the recent scholarly work examining the politics of housing, the dynamics of housing mobilization and the context and movement-specific social movement’s framing around the housing crisis, especially human rights and social justice frameworks (Florea et al., 2018; Hearne, 2020; Lima, 2019, 2021; Martinez, 2019; Montagna & Grazioli, 2019; Muñoz, 2017; Polanska et al., 2019; Yip et al., 2019, to cite a few), in this article, I focus on the recent political discourse deployed by housing advocates in Ireland. Drawing on a rich body of qualitative evidence, I explore the political narratives on homelessness and housing insecurity of a housing movement in Dublin, ‘Raise The Roof’. In particular, I focus on action-oriented beliefs, values and discourses targeting both the mobilization of new movement adherents and housing policy changes. Ultimately, this analysis contributes to the crescent discussion on collective action and political discourse within the context of social movements.

Therefore, this article examines the complex interaction between housing crises narrative by examining how the Raise The Roof (RTR) coalition group attempts to shift long-standing narratives around housing to shape the national debate on the housing crisis. My purpose is to explore the political messages created to demand housing policy changes while examining the resonance and efficacy of specific discourses. In what follows, I first draw on the literature on social movement narratives, with an special focus on recent narratives for housing justice. I then go on to present the context of the contemporary housing policy in Ireland. Next, I provide an original empirical account of the narratives employed and analyse how they have been utilized. Finally, in the last section, I consider the (relatively) successful and failed discourses and its implications for future research.

2. Activists Housing Narratives

Political action for housing has been an integral part of the ideas of home, housing justice and the right to housing, in the face of a serious housing crisis. Fundamentally, the post-economic crisis – and more recently – post-Covid-19 pandemic movements have exposed the roots of the housing crisis, making it clear who is to blame and, in most cases, proposing alternative solutions that go beyond the private sector such as main housing provider. In this brief literature review, I focus on two of the main narratives used by housing advocates, the right to the city and housing justice. The right to the city – and within it, the right to housing – are formulations pursued by housing activists in order to expose, propose and politicize key issues that can move housing movements closer to implementing these rights, sustained by a view where a more democratic, socially just and sustainable form of urbanization is possible (Brenner, 2009).

2.1. Narrative and Social Movements

Narratives are part of public discourse. They are often ‘stories’ shared by interest groups trying to draw attention to an issue as relevant issues needing attention. A situation will be perceived as a political problem depending on the narrative implemented (Hajer, 1993, p. 44). In other words, narratives allow human actors to express the meaning underlying their own agency (Uprichard & Byrne, 2006). Some works on narratives have pointed to a ‘narrative turn’, attracting the attention of scholars working in the field of social movements and collective action. Some of these debates have argued that narrative analysis can expand and enrich the field of social movement studies, especially given its potential to go beyond cultural approaches such as new social movement (NSM) theory and framing perspectives. This seems to be the case because NSM theorists have not focused on how activists make sense and transform meaning and the framing perspective exaggerates cognitive dynamics and offers little about how collective claims bring about specific responses (Davies, 2002). In this way, narratives have a specific role, which is requesting a special (or privileged) space in the business of organizing and sense-making in the world of interpersonal affective relationship construction, including how individuals or organizations arguably relate to themselves (Bamberg, 2020, p.252).

In the field of social movements, narratives are a vital form of movement discourse and a crucial analytical concept, constituting a pervasive and influential form of activity for collective actors (Benford, 2002). Polletta and Gardner (2015, p. 487) delineate the narratives of social movements as forms of discourse, vehicles of ideology and elements of collective action structures, but, unlike the three, they can often be identified in a chunk of text or speech by their characteristics. They also note how social movement narratives include narratives that can help movements spark public interest, gain support, possibly even convert opponents. From this perspective, stories are a crucial resource for activists, as the stories they tell can challenge not only the ideological common sense that underpins laws, policies and practices, but also have the power to create new stories that can resonate with the public.

2.2. Housing Narratives

In the field of housing studies, some studies have tried to explain how certain issues become accepted and defined as ‘housing problems’. Jacobs et al. (2003), for example, explain that there are three necessary conditions for a housing problem to be accepted and addressed: first, it requires a compelling narrative that tells a plausible and convincing story; second, it needs a coalition of support and third, the subsequent implementation of institutional measures aligned with such constructions. Other authors have also noted of narratives, including policy narratives, in constructing problems, identifying causality and assigning responsibility for their resolution have long been recognized (see Crawford & Flint, 2015). The consensus around defining a housing problem in the public sphere is that the impetus for policy change is not caused by the sudden worsening of housing conditions; instead, public interest was focused by changes in housing affordability, a series of critical events such as the rise of homelessness, waves of evictions, pushing the general public to demand that politicians craft policies to solve them (Bierre & Howden-Chapman, 2020; Jacobs et al., 2003).

2.3. Narratives Right to the City, Housing Justice and Right to a Home

In view of all that has been mentioned so far, I argue that the construction of the housing problem as not just a policy problem, but also a political problem, driven to the public sphere through narratives that expose the politicized nature of the housing crisis. Such narratives not only (re)appraise concepts such as justice, equality, democracy, but push for the development policies that foster and respect the human right to a home. Housing movements are popular struggles by those for whom housing means home, not real estate (Madden & Marcuse, 2016). They often focus on housing injustice, which takes many forms: expensive homes and rents, homelessness and inadequate housing conditions, to mention a few.

Contemporary activists focus on actions that mobilize renters threatened by unfair evictions and fighting predatory financing, and facing the many forms housing injustice takes. And these actions permeated the narrative they create to achieve their goals, fighting for use values against exchange values; for residential interests against the interests of landlords, banks, developers and investors (Madden & Marcuse, 2016). While the target of housing movements has changed over time (for instance, from banks responsible for the sub-prime crisis and executing foreclosures to the greedy international investors landlords) housing struggles for structural change are essentially long-term – and this is reflected in movements narrative. Housing movements are obviously very different on what they demand and from whom, but what they have in common is that, rather than normalizing housing precarity, housing movements struggle to push forward both an agenda in which the state is more responsible for housing delivery while also advancing a housing justice narrative (see Florea et al., 2018; Hearne, 2020; Lima, 2021). How to operationalize these narratives has been a challenge for housing activists, and also for scholar investigating what types of narratives are more successful, why and in what contexts. In this article, I hope to contribute to narrow this knowledge gap.

Interestingly, critical urban theory has come up with an answer to the challenge of narrative construction, which I use to understand the ways housing activists shift and create narratives surrounding housing and help activists reimagine the future housing advocates are fighting for. Here I refer not only to the right to the city approach, with the idea that a holistic approach is possible to improve the quality of everyday life in cities, but that critical urban theory points out directions that can contribute to the organization strategies and day-to-day politics. In more concrete terms, I draw in my analyse from Marcuse (2009) who argues that this radical urban practice includes the following three elements: exposing the roots of the problem; propose solutions and politicize responses, indicating the political action involved. In analysing my case study, I apply these three elements to understand the narrative that housing movements apply to inform their actions.

3. Research Design and Methods

Methodologically, the article is oriented towards constructivist approaches and is informed by a narrative theory of social movements, in which the call for action becomes meaningful in the process of creating new stories or narratives (used here interchangeably) to long-standing narratives around housing. The housing crisis in Dublin and the collective action around it makes for an interesting case study as it allows us to understand how the housing crisis is framed by activists, thus providing an ideal location for studying protest and housing mobilization. Since 2014 the issue of homelessness and severe housing unaffordability has emerged as a major public issue. Official homelessness figures in Ireland showed 10,148 people experiencing homelessness and relying on emergency accommodation in February 2020 (DHPLG, 2020). Out of 10,148, there were 3,534 dependent children.

I focus on the National Homeless and Housing Coalition (NHHC) ‘Raise the Roof’ campaign, created in 2018. This large coalition acts as an umbrella organization to several SMOs, including trade unions, political parties, student unions, housing charities and local community and campaign groups. As a complex, diverse and formal coalition, NHHC embraced the goals of several SMOs and attempted to implement them. The Raise the Roof campaign (thereafter RTR) has organized major demonstrations and campaigns on housing and attracted considerable attention to the ongoing and worsening housing emergency in the country. Varied in its composition, this campaign has placed the conversation about the actions needed to address the housing crisis (rent control, tenant security and legal right to housing) at the forefront of political debate. Some of the groups involved in the campaign groups were established before the economic crisis but the majority were created post-2011. Representatives of interest groups included mainly tenant advocacy groups and groups advocating for rent regulation. Housing NGO representatives included housing associations and charities which are not-for-profit organizations providing social housing to low-income families and homeless services.

The material of 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with members of NHHC was a sub-set of 45 interviews conducted for the research project. I draw on these narrative interviews as a source, in addition to field notes taken during fieldwork. The study employs a case-study analysis, grounded on the goal of obtaining a range of organization representatives, varying in terms of size (small to large), type of organization (political party, trade union, charity and grassroots group) and geography (north, inner city and south Dublin). Participants were selected based on their understanding and familiarity with issues related to the housing crisis, experience in the housing sector and participation in the RTR campaign. The interviews took place between January and May 2019. They were recorded with the consent of the participants and addressed issues such as challenges of housing mobilization, political discourse around the right to housing, campaign strategies, as well as perspectives to influence housing policy change. All interview data were anonymized, transcribed and encoded in NVivo. The collected data were analysed through selective coding, where emerging codes were reviewed and integrated, leading to the identification of central narratives for the construction of meaning.

4. Housing Policy and Social Mobilization in Ireland: A Brief Overview

This section presents a brief overview of the contemporary history of housing in Ireland as a way to provide contextualization to the discussion that follows. There are three periods of housing policy: the first, between 1900 and 1980, is marked by expansionary state spending and social housing as asset-based welfare, where homeownership was encouraged and housing was subsidized; the second period between 1980 and 1990, is marked by the redefinition of housing provision, in the context of economic stagnation, unemployment and high levels of emigration. In this period, housing policy turned towards a new low-tax, low-spend economic and social model, and a contraction in social housing. Housing policy in the third period, 1990 to date, has a dominant emphasis on the trends of financialization, neoliberal reforms via austerity measures and market-based approaches to housing problems, such as the entry of international investors in both the social housing and private rental sector (Hearne, 2020; Kenna, 2011; NESC, 2014; Norris & Fahey, 2011).

Ireland has historically shown a substantial degree of organizing in the form of community-based activism in working-class areas (Cox, 2017). Community organizations engaged with housing rights, such as the Dublin Housing Action Committee and the National Association of Tenants’ Organizations in the 1960s, are considered predecessors of modern housing rights organizing in Ireland (see Mallon, 2017; Punch, 2009 for further analysis). The 1980s also saw popular resistance against mass demolition of residential areas for new commercial developments (for example, the International Financial Services Centre (Mallon, 2017)). Levels of protest started to shift after the ‘Celtic Tiger’, a period of economic boom in which public-private partnerships (PPPs) to regenerate existing older social housing estates were created. Those saw a high level of conflict within communities which saw their wishes and concerns ignored in the renovation plans, and later the collapse of PPPs following the 2008 economic crash and the period of national austerity that ensued (Hearne et al., 2018).

There are important differentiations between the austerity and the post-austerity periods in Ireland. The time period of austerity goes as: from the initial crisis worldwide (2007–2010), the period of austerity policies in Ireland (2011–2014) and the post-austerity period intensification of the crisis (2015–to date). Each one of those periods had its specific social mobilization challenges. The first years of the economic crisis did not yield the same level of anti-austerity protest as seen in Spain and Greece. Irish trade unions were demobilized and fractured by infight, social partnerships and budget cuts (see Hearne et al., 2018). The peak of the property bubble grappled Ireland only in 2013, much later than in other countries, but also acquired a degree politicization due to smaller (and underreported) protests taking place. Particularly in the third phase (the period of the study) the scale of this housing crisis has resulted in increased public and political interest into urgent political action on the housing crisis. In more recent years, the issue of housing financialization has been the focus of grassroots protests and campaigns that criticize, expose and confront international investment funds and the politicians that support them. The strong presence of financial power holders is associated with the vertiginous increase in housing prices and evictions, the increase in the number of homeless people and the housing accessibility crisis in the country (see Lima et al., 2022).

Ireland had a powerful experience around the anti-water charges movement (Right2Water) in the post-austerity period, a successful protest campaign against the introduction of water charges in the country. Since 2014, when housing movements started to emerge in response to crises in the private rental sector and in particular to the increased homelessness, housing movements became more politicized and experienced, both because of their experiences in the anti-water charges movement (Right2Water), abortion rights (Together4Yes) and marriage equality campaign (YesEquality) and many housing activists intended to repeat those experiences. The issue of homelessness in special is on the agenda of groups advocating for the changes required to end the housing crisis.

5. Narratives to Bring Housing Crisis and Homelessness to the Public Discourse: Key Campaign Elements

The section focuses on the core narratives created to identify the cause of the housing problems and justify specific policy interventions. The dominant narratives are concentrated around three core predominate discourses under the framework of urban critical theory: (1) strategies to expose the roots of the housing crisis; (2) propose solutions to the problems identified to achieve the group’s goal and (3) appeal to the common values of solidarity and human rights, more specifically, politicize the idea of housing as a human right. The framework of those discourses has action-oriented functions, executed via discursive processes that align with a call for action. Below I present narratives projected by SMOs involved in RTR and discursive processes involved.

5.1. ‘It is a Housing Emergency!’ – Exposing the Roots of the Problem and Identifying Culprits

Two issues have contributed to the increasing awareness around housing issues: people’s experiences of housing inequality and housing shortage. The first is the changing profile of the type of people presenting themselves as homeless. Ireland has always had a homeless population, but as economic and demographic contexts have changed, so has the scope and profile of this group. The profile of the homeless in Ireland no longer primarily includes individuals with drug addiction and/or alcohol addiction, mental issues and family problems, but increasingly people that have become homeless because of financial problems. This new ‘financial’ or ‘economic’ homeless often have none of the traditional risk factors for homelessness but, for a variety of reasons, including job loss, low pay and rent costs, have people ended up in need of emergency accommodation (Glynn, 2016). With the homeless crisis escalating from 2014, the issue of family homelessness became a unifying signifier enabling some degree of unity among campaigners and activist groups (Hearne et al., 2018). The majority of the RTR’s housing campaigners (15 out of 19) have highlighted the new forms of family homelessness that have gradually captured public attention, placing the issue of a housing emergency firmly on the political radar and in public discourse. As illustrated by one participant directly mentions family homelessness as a particular relevant problem:

The [homelessness] issue affects pretty much every community so that people are talking about it a lot more. It is not seen as a certain cohort of people who are on the streets. Whether that is people who are in emergency accommodation, people who can’t get social housing, people who can’t afford the rent in private rental accommodation or people who can’t afford their mortgages. It is actually all tied to the same failed policy (Participant 12).

The second issue is connected to the increase in child homelessness, an important aspect of the new homeless trend, as the number of families with dependent children presenting as homeless has grown, according to DHPLG (Department of Housing, Planning & Local Government Homelessness, 2020). The idea of homeless children ignites particular indignation from the public. Many more are experiencing hidden homelessness – living in overcrowded, unsuitable or unstable accommodation (O’Sullivan, 2016). Research has demonstrated how homelessness negatively impacts children’s well-being and performance in school (Children’s Rights Alliance, 2018) and that the majority of homeless children come from lone parents’ households (Oireachtas, 2017). Many families with children experiencing homelessness have to be accommodated on a temporary basis in hotels which, as a policy, has been deemed expensive, unsatisfactory and a threat to the well-being of homeless families (Nowicki et al., 2019). The ‘My Name Is’ campaign in 2017 organized by the Inner City Helping Homeless (a member of RTR) put up several posters with the MyNameIs hashtag (#MyNameIs) to raise awareness of the unprecedented numbers of children currently homeless and urged the housing minister at the time, Eoghan Murphy, to declare a state of emergency regarding the homeless crisis. A housing emergency has not been declared to date but the campaign had a strong impact on social media and around the country. The majority of participants (12 out of 19) agreed child homelessness is one of the worst facets of the housing emergency, as illustrated by this NHHC participant:

The increase in child homelessness figures was a particular set of phenomena that happened from 2014 that has gotten much worse. Together with changes in the rental market and the mortgage distress market drove that, I think it was the moment everyone knew the crisis was getting worse and worse (Participant 6).

The strategy of highlighting families and children as the main victims of a crisis to bring it to the public discourse is not a novel one. The debate on the deserving/undeserving poor has unfolded in the context of the austerity agendas, emphasizing the moral entitlement of hard-working families. In the US, for instance, the notion of the ‘deserving poor’ was central to the construction of early models of public housing in the Depression era, with support from housing and poverty activists (Donnelly, 2013). Similar to the UK, Ireland’s austerity agendas shifted the poverty debate away from the focus on real need to emphasize moral eligibility for assistance to justify social welfare cuts (Dukelow & Kennett, 2018; Tihelková, 2015, p. 125). The new homeless profile is presented by the RTR campaign within the large effects of the housing crisis, with potential to affect both the poorest and the middle classes but also as a moral issue, in which the moralizing dimension of human rights is taken as a goal.

There was a consensus among the interviewed that the Irish mainstream media also has had a role in framing the homeless problem as government failure. Since 2016, there has been dedicated journalism in almost every media outlet focusing on housing, with nearly all mass media outlets having housing correspondents or a housing section. As noted by Zald and McCarthy (2017[1987]) SMOs may be able to influence media coverage of their activities with relative success. In this regard, media attention has delivered information about the dismal consequences stemming from the homeless problem, as campaigners have used this space to highlight the inaccuracies in the homeless figures and criticize ineffective housing policies. In addition, the RTR campaign includes high-profile politicians, who draw attention to their public actions and words. One participant, member of NHHC and a public representative commented on the movements-media relations:

If you look at the TV, newspaper and radio coverage, there was a sense that actually this crisis is permeating every sector of society, (…) there was no negative coverage of the initiative, it felt nice for us (Participant 6).

In general, most participants felt the mainstream media coverage of the protests and the highlight of homelessness stories has been positive for the campaign. Other independent media, such as ‘Dublin Inquirer’, has reported the experiences of homeless families, stories of households on the verge of eviction and the expansion of institutional landlords and ‘vulture funds’ in the country with a permanent article series on those issues. Hence, it could conceivably suggest that the perceived positive coverage was somewhat connected to an effective diagnostic of the crisis pushed forward by the RTR campaign. However, it is not possible to determine cause and effect here. Other housing groups outside the coalition, such as Take Back the City, also received strong media coverage during building occupation in the summer of 2018, even if not always in a positive light.¹

5.2. ‘Rent Control, Housing Affordability and Social Housing’ – Proposing Solutions

The identification of specific housing problems and their causes led to a ‘plan of attack’. RTR’s plan of attack for the housing crisis included essentially: a constitutional right to housing by a referendum, the end of evictions into homelessness, rent controls, security of tenancies, affordable homes, turning vacant buildings into social housing and building more social housing units.² These demands are similar to housing movement demands in other European countries, such as Italy and Spain. But while the leading housing movements in these countries (e.g., the Spanish PAH and the Italian large squatting networks) converge around grassroot solutions to the housing crisis (see Aureli & Pierpaolo, 2017; García-Lamarca, 2017), the RTR campaign appeal to the wider Irish public using policy language that appeal to the general public who were affected and concerned by housing problems but not necessarily engage in protest (Hearne, 2020).

The articulation of the proposed solution involves strategies around the central idea of a right to housing. This bridging occurs through a campaign linking the experience of the public with the crisis, academic sources and available data, to channel public sentiment around severe housing injustice. Publicly, this bridging occurs through public events and housing conferences, op-ed articles in newspapers and calls for policy reforms (see Table 1). As participants have described in the interviews (12 out of 19), these solutions are linked to the extension of the housing emergency across Irish society and have led to cooperative alliances among the actors involved. These alliances involve the presence of academic experts, progressive parties and charities under the same banner, even if reaching agreements are difficult on some occasions. As one of the respondents noted:

It is out of sheer frustration and to highlight the solutions we got together, because that is a solution, there are vacant houses, rent can be controlled, housing construction can be cheaper (Participant 13).

Solution-oriented narratives justify the efficacy of particular solutions. The presented solutions have a broad appeal and make connections with issues that are believable, especially for those suffering the most or those most aware of the seriousness of the housing crisis. This is illustrated in the case of activists able to point to homelessness solutions in other European cities, such as housing policies implemented in Helsinki and Vienna. These cities are doing much better than their European counterparts in tackling homelessness by facilitating access to permanent housing for homeless families (Kaakinen, 2019; Weinzierl et al., 2016). Campaigners use this evidence to claim that similar policies are possible in Ireland. One participant describes a report by the National Economic and Social Council (NESC, 2014) that helped to fashion a frame for higher tenancy protection in Ireland:

Table 1. Summary of core narratives.

Core narratives	Political discourse	Associated action
Expose the problem	• Evidence of housing crisis • New homeless profile • Housing emergency • Market-led policies and international investors • Growing awareness	• Public debates and conferences • Divulge people’s experience with the crisis • Collection and publication of own data
Propose solutions	• Worsening of crisis • Credible policy proposals • Counter-frames to rebut government policies	• Position papers • Online and offline campaigns • Comparison with other countries
Politicizing the right to housing	• The right to housing • Housing referendum	• Engage more people in collective action • Engagement with political parties • Street rallies

We developed this idea essentially drawing on work done by NESC [The National Economic and Social Counci] that focused on how cost rental housing could work, and it was sort of an attractive pitch that we made. They [the report by NESC] said it was based on a cross class solidarity model. So that you would get away from the stigmatisation of social housing and housing would become something for everybody that needed it (Participant 23).

Another challenge for activists is the credibility of the proposal they articulate. The presence of high-profile activists in the housing campaign helps to draw public attention. This is the case with homelessness campaigner and cleric Fr Peter McVerry, a well-known and strong advocate for the right to housing in Ireland, who was described in interviews as a ‘moral authority’ in issues related to housing and homelessness and whose presence and support helps to boost activists’ claims. The work of think tanks, research institutions and scholars also have a central role in generating empirical credibility for the movements’ claims, as they collaborate in the production of reports, public letters and columns in newspapers. Their work collaborates with the validity of the housing solutions provided by activists. Such solutions ensure a basic level of evidence from consistent, high-quality research produced in Irish institutions. There are a number of academics involved in housing campaigns, which provide research and analysis on the Irish housing market and housing policy implementation. The role of academics in social change around housing in Ireland has been documented in other campaigns (Cox, 2017; Hearne, 2020, p. 101), and their engagement with the RTR campaign provides information and knowledge to underline the extent, causes and consequences of housing exclusion. Activist scholars in feminist and Marxist traditions, for example, tend to see research and activism as intrinsically merged. It was suggested in the interviews (13 out of 19) that scholars and activists together collaborate in giving credibility to the claim-making of activists. For example, one participant said:

We have been talking about this for a long time, academics and activists are really bringing it out into the public so there is a much better awareness (…) on the issue of housing and homelessness, so now I think we are in a better position to speak about solutions that work (Participant 11).

In working with a rights-based housing strategy, campaigners have the recognition of the primacy of the right to housing as a legal right as a central principle, subject to effective remedies (Simon, 2018). RTR campaigners have pointed out during both interviews and media statements that, contrary to international human rights obligations, the Irish public investment in housing is often detached from core social purposes, which in the case of housing is to provide people with a place to live in with security and dignity. The 2019 letter by the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing to the Irish Government criticizing the State’s approach to financialization is often emphasized by activists to argue it has become the ‘commodity of choice’ for speculative investments in the country. In receiving that public criticism, the Irish government tried to rebut the UN’s claims and has on several occasions denied that the policies to tackle the homelessness crisis are failing (Finn, 2019; Leahy, 2018).

As demonstrated by Gowan (2010) the homelessness phenomenon is not absolute: it is shaped by divergent diagnostic framings of the nature and causes of the problem. Nevertheless, it is common for some politicians to typify homelessness as ‘normal’, in an attempt to justify why homeless policies might not be working. For instance, when the then Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said the rate of homelessness is not high if compared with other European Countries (McGee, 2017) and one of his top officials claimed ‘homelessness is a normal thing’ (Clarke, 2017), homeless charities and housing groups criticized those comments and challenged the government narrative, as explained by this participant:

This narrative of normal homelessness has to be challenged, simply because it is not valid. Ireland uses a very narrow definition of homeless and the real numbers are likely to be higher. My [organization name] is more interested in preventing homelessness, to stop it before it occurs. (…) But how? Addressing any issues that would have caused the homelessness in the first place, like landlords trying to kick you out [of the house], so homelessness doesn’t go forward (Participant 30).

Participants also voiced concerns (9 out of 19) about data manipulation and the consequences of the use of imprecise data on the elaboration of homeless policies, as suggested in this quote: ‘The fact is that statistics are not even gathered correctly or consistently or anything like that, how can you plan on no proper evidence for what is the nature of the problem? (Participant 18). The participants on the whole have argued for a clear, transparent and comprehensive definition of homelessness for accurate statistical data.

In fact, those claims are supported by a report from the European Commission published in 2019, which found that homeless data provided by the Irish government tends to be unreliable due to statistical flaws in the measurement of homeless. Those errors hamper planning as well as efficiency and effectiveness in service provisions (Daly, 2019). The release of accurate homeless data has been a source of conflict between the government and housing groups. NHHC and RTR did not produce their own data to support their claims, but individual campaigners have done so. The housing charity Focus Ireland, for example, keeps tabs on homeless figures in Ireland. Their data also show when the government homeless measurement changed.

Regarding competing proposals within the campaign, members disagree in relation to some of the proposed solutions to the housing problem. An initial topic of friction was that not everyone was convinced that rent controls work because Ireland already had the Rent Pressured Zone areas, where rents were allowed by law to increase by 4% per annum, but that was not enough to keep rents affordable.³ . Some groups in the coalition diverge about rent certainty and rent control. The former refers to regulated caps on rent increases, which places a limit on how much landlords can increase tenants’ rent at the time of renewal. This amount is usually based on an area-specific measurement, and in Ireland it is already in place in the Rent Pressure Zones since December 2016. The latter, rent control, encompasses regulations that restrict the rent amount landlords can charge tenants. These are normally designed to keep housing affordable for tenants. Some interviewees argued that a greater degree of rent certainty is required and that a rent index based on income and consumer prices can be effective, while others believe there is enough evidence to conclude that Rent Pressures Zones are contributing little to nothing in keeping rents affordable and so they advocate for more far-reaching rent controls. In the initial phases of the ‘Raise the Roof’ campaign, some housing action groups, particularly tenants’ groups, were in favour of rent controls, while trade unions and some of the more centre and centre-left were in favour of certainty. However, as put by this respondent:

(…) as the housing crisis has deepened, we do not talk about rent certainty or rent freeze anymore, we only talk about rent controls now. So obviously it is a huge challenge because some people still argue that you are taking away the right of landlords to make a profit which is a constitutional right by the way, while housing is not (Participant 24).

Despite this and other framing disputes, such as the use of empty public buildings and vacant properties; coalitions, networks and housing groups still interact and recognize one another’s indispensability for their collective action frames. They differ in terms of their proposed solutions and the techniques they advocate and employ but, to a certain extent, they converge in how they refute the logic or efficacy of solutions employed by the government and offer their own remedies to the housing crisis.

In relation to the right to housing, friction involved members in favour of a referendum as the best way to secure the right to housing and others preferring it to be done through legislation, which would be operationalized quicker. Internal debates ensued and the position of the campaign was (re)articulated, evolving into a common strategy advocated for all members, in this case, a legal right to housing. One participant from the trade union sector explained that: ‘we decided not to be prescriptive, so we just said establish a legal right to housing. Through legislation, through a referendum, the important is to secure this right’ (Participant 14). But as we will see next, it was the referendum perspective that obtained resonance with campaigners.

5.3. ‘Homes for All’ – Politicizing the Right to Housing

RTR’s political action is grounded on a human rights-based housing discourse, which establishes the access to housing as a fundamental human right. This approach set the tone of proposals supporting an informing action. Politization was detected not just in their slogans, placard and public statement, but also seen in their efforts to push a referendum on the right to housing and thus make this a concrete right in Ireland.

Housing protests have been used not just to show the public dissatisfaction with the worsening crisis, but also to show the wider public support to RTR’s proposed housing solutions and to highlight the campaign’s human rights-based housing strategy. In one particular rally, on 3 October 2018, 10,000 people gathered at a lunchtime rally outside Leinster House (An Oireachtas, the parliament of Ireland) to demand a policy solution that can end the housing crisis (Figure 1). About this rally, Hearne (2020, p. 209) noted ‘it was not only the largest housing and homeless protest in the current crisis (i.e., since 2014), but also the largest housing protest in Ireland in over three decades’. The protest mobilized trade unions, political parties, student unions, housing agencies, community groups and individual members of the public. The rally was called to support a motion demanding increased investment in public housing and a declaration of the housing crisis as a ‘national emergency’, including the end of evictions into homelessness, rent controls to achieve affordable rent and enshrining the right to housing in the constitution (Oireachtas, 2018). Although the motion passed (83 in favour and 43 against) it was not binding, and the government has not declared a housing emergency to date.

Figure 1. Housing protests leaflets. Image 1. Raise the roof rally on 3 October 2018. Image 2. Housing demonstration on 9 March 2019.

Formulations regarding a right to housing as a basic right are more widespread than many realize, as legislation acknowledging the responsibility of states to provide adequate housing is in the national constitutions of 81 countries. In Ireland, housing campaigners seek to include the right to a home in the constitution. Any amendments to the Constitution of Ireland are only possible through a referendum (article 47), and thus campaigners and housing groups have come together to call on every party to commit to a referendum on the right to housing. To date, there have been three proposed bills. The first, in 2017, proposed the Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Right to Housing) Bill proposed by small parties closely aligned to social movement; aimed to make housing a constitutional right, but was defeated by 73 votes to 37 (Oireachtas, 2019). In 2019, there was a new attempt to enshrine a right to housing in the Constitution, but the bill elapsed with the dissolution of government. And the current one in 2021, now being pushed by a small party, People Before Profit, that is closely aligned with the social movements. Commenting on the timing for the referendum, one of the interviewees said:

We have got a major issue regarding housing and until we see the likes of the right to housing referendum passed or we see major change in legislation, little will change (Participant 3).

The rallies organized by RTR were attended by thousands of people, which in turn were informed by the human rights approach and as a consequence what expose and proposed. People’s histories of housing inequality and homelessness had an important role in shaping the narrative choices of this housing movement. Figure 1 shows RTR and NHHC rally leaflets. I discuss the strength of the frames and their challenges and deficiencies in the next section.⁴

6. Discussion and Conclusion

This study has examined the core ad most relevant political narratives of the RTR campaign in the pursuit of housing policy change. Through an analysis of the emergence and scope of the political discourse around the right to housing in Ireland, the research has identified the core housing narratives (summarized in Table 1) relevant to the generation, refinement and diffusion of narratives shaping the mobilization for housing rights in Ireland.

RTR participants strived to achieve consensus that facilitates agreement and helps to get people into action. The consensus built around the idea that housing crisis is an emergency helped to construct agreement in relation to the causes of the crisis and how blame is attributed. Among the narratives created, the one that focused on identifying the roots of the problem and attributing blame was the one with less or no dissent among campaign members, and was well-received by the wider public. In this frame, problem identification was not just factual, but was correspondingly referenced by the visible increase in homelessness, rising rents and lack of social housing. Those are all valid aspects of this narrative, as it was felt and seen by many people living in Ireland, especially for the younger generations (i.e., ‘generation rent’).

The housing campaigners worked to organize and mobilize affected people and the general public around alternative housing policies to pressure the government to take action quickly, as they attempted to construct a powerful narrative theme. An evidence of their capacity to organize were the marches and rallies attended by thousands of people, the involvement of a younger generation of activists and campaigner’s ability to draw public attention to a housing system that is faulty and requires critical changes. The results of this study indicate that the campaign worked on two fronts: engagement with political parties and attempting to build mass mobilization. Engagement with political parties was done via experienced trade unions and party members, while mass mobilization was carried out aiming to gain support from the public to then pressure the government. Campaigners indeed wanted to repeat the mass mobilization achieve by the abortion rights, gay marriage and water charges, which were large and more successful movements. However, as the case of RTR suggests, a campaign with relatively strong frames around housing rights has not achieved the public resonance campaign members envisaged.

As previously suggested by Polletta (2015), even strong stories do not lead to successful outcomes, but changing ‘deeper stories’ can be both a target and a measure of the success of protest – and sometimes they do fail. The alignment of the three core narratives among the campaign members was not frictionless. Analysis showed that the narrative exposing the roots of the problem resonates well with the public opinion, whereas the proposals and the politicization of have been more difficult to gain resonance. Although the three core narratives were aligned (expose, propose and politicize), two types of friction were identified within the campaign: one regarding the push for a referendum as a housing solution and the organization of large rallies. While the referendum vs legislation (Home For All) narratives coexist well, the timing around the organization of rallies was important for trade union campaigners. The campaign has created a public discourse articulation that appeals to a range of social actors and uses their resources to construct and legitimize an interpretation of social reality. The policy preference of activists supports the idea of a housing solution with strong state intervention. Their proposals derive from a platform of sensible solutions to improve access to housing and stop the violation of basic human rights. In relation to the narratives that intend to politicize the right to housing, the campaign holds housing as a core value from a human rights perspective, as activists highlight the experience of those suffering from the housing crisis and connect it with the violation of human rights. But, this rights-based has not been enough to change the direction of housing policy or to sustain the mobilization of large numbers of people.

The human rights-based approach to inform action and serving and a rationale for referendum on the right to housing in Ireland have not achieved resonance with the general public to date. While it seems that the idea of a right to housing has good support from the public, the enforceable right to a home still provokes heated discussion. Several participants reported that a large number of people see public housing as a ‘free house’, which is not the case. Activists need to spend a great deal of time trying to demystify that public housing is subsidized housing and not ‘free accommodation’. The lack of a strong support for public housing has as a downside, which is the weakening of the campaign. Despite strong narratives that shine a light on ineffective policies for the housing crisis and focus on solutions to the crisis, RTR has not gained much traction or mass public support. Especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, maintaining the same level of street protest is a huge challenge.

There are three possible explanations for this difficulty in mobilizing a large bulk of the population. First, narratives with a relatively good resonance should not be the end goal. If the goal is to increase support for alternative housing policies, focusing on homeless children, for example, brings compassion and empathy from the public but as a resonating narrative it is not sufficient. Second, the message that housing is a human right appears to be backfiring. The early success of the Right2Water campaigns motivated some activists to believe that a large housing movement was possible to achieve. Whereas in the anti-water charges campaign water was successfully presented as a human right (Clark, 2019), frames and powerful stories built around a particular value do not work on every issue (Chong & Druckman, 2007; Polletta & Gardner, 2015). In addition, the general understanding around housing as a human right is less consensual. The campaign takes homelessness as a moral issue to equate it with the need for housing laws. But lots of people still interpret the enforceable right to housing as ‘housing for free’, a perception that comes from a strong logic of meritocracy and homeownership, founded on deserving/undeserving poor argument that dominates the social debate and continue to divide public opinion (Gowan, 2010; O’Sullivan, 2016; Tihelková, 2015). In other words, by focusing more on housing and homelessness as moral human rights issues and less in mobilizing and organizing, the campaign actions have been less effective. Third, housing is the cornerstone of the Irish financial recovery after the 2007–2008 economic downturn. Treated as a commodity, housing is seen as a financial asset and a lucrative business for the private market and international investors. Without powerful allies in the government willing to challenge the privatization of housing, the hegemonic narratives that have justified the conventional financialized approaches to housing remain unshakable. But what narratives would be effective? The analysis of an effective activist narratives that can resonate better with the general public is outside the scope of this article, I would argue that results of studies focused on values-led communication, in which self-transcendence values – such as equality, social justice and compassion underpin campaign messages, show a pertinent path to mobilize transcendence values that people already hold but may not always prioritize (see Crowley & Mullen, 2019 for a more complete account).

While this study is specific to Ireland, other countries have gone through similar trends, such as Spain, the UK, Portugal and Italy, opening the space for more research on the framing of housing crises that go beyond national contexts, making the results of this article of international interest. Further research might investigate the link between frame processes of urban movements and achieved outcomes in a comparative approach.

Acknowledgements

My sincere appreciation to the anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments and constructive feedback have helped refine and enrich this publication. I also want to express my gratitude to the housing movements participants who generously gave their time and shared their experiences during the data collection process.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Irish Research Council [grant number GOIPD104].

Notes

1 Take Back The City was a housing coalition by grassroots groups formed by mostly young people, migrants and ethnic minorities in Dublin. Focusing on direct action, the group occupied buildings in 2018 and received great media attention. Take Back The City was successful in highlighting issues of vacant buildings, the impact of short-term rental and homelessness. See Lima (2021) for further analysis.

2 As described in the Raise the Roof webpage as of 9 April 2020: https://www.raisetheroof.ie/.

3 An amendment to the Residential Tenancies (Act 2021) in November 2021 introduced rent caps increases to a maximum of 2% per annum or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

4 The decision to call people for rallies did not occur without frictions. While some members wanted to organize demonstrations and street rallies, trade unions members were more very careful. For the latter, a poor attendance in rallies would undermine claims that the housing crisis was important and so people cared about it.