A woman who has been couch-surfing for two-and-a-half years since being evicted from her home has said she no longer has any choice other than to go to emergency accommodation.

Jessica Freed was evicted from her home of 15 years in September 2020 and has been “on the move ever since”.

On Lunchtime Live this afternoon, she said the “financialization of property in this country” is forcing people who can afford mortgages into homelessness.

She questioned why banks give people mortgages on second properties that are effectively paid by their tenants – but refuse to offer tenants those same mortgages.

Emergency accommodation

“I’ve been couch surfing,” she said. “In friends’ spare rooms, in spare flats, in a near-empty house at one point.

“It’s only because I’m so lucky to even have friends that I avoided emergency accommodation so far – but it looks like, in the summer, that’s where I am headed.”

She said her mother passed away shortly before her eviction and she has no childhood bedroom to go home to.

“There’s nowhere I can go back to and to be honest, my friends aren’t responsible for me,” she said.

“I shouldn’t be in this position. Nobody should be in this position.”

Mortgage

Jessica is a freelance actress and has paid rent all her life – but has never qualified for a mortgage.

She said people are having the wrong conversation about the housing crisis – noting that the problem isn’t landlords or the eviction ban or even supply and demand.

“The problem is the dysfunctional method of the supply of housing,” she said.

“It is the financialization of property in this country, which has been particularly acute for the last 20 years.”

Second-home

She said Ireland needs to put an end to the idea that banks should facilitate people to “make a living off a second house”.

“You are basically asking people to pay the guts of your mortgage for you so you can have a second home,” she said.

“Now I don’t care, people can have a dozen properties if they pay for them out of their own pocket.

“My problem is the bank will facilitate somebody who can’t afford a second mortgage to buy a second home that I then pay for, yet I can’t be given that same mortgage.

“A person’s right to boost their pension is not equivalent to a person’s human right to have a roof over their head.”

Elderly

Jessica said she is particularly concerned for elderly people who are facing the same problems she is.

“There are people in their 70s and 80s who are in this situation,” she said.

“I’m incredibly lucky that I’m mentally and physically fit and well, for the moment.

“I have the capability of moving around and I know how stressful it is for me. I can only imagine people who are in a worse situation.”