Housing difficulties among participants in the Being LGBTQI+ in Ireland study

Little is known about LGBTQ+ people’s experiences of housing difficulties in Ireland due to gaps in housing statistics. Using two questions from an online survey on mental health, this paper examined lifetime prevalence, reasons for, and predictors of housing difficulties among 2,582 LGBTQ+ individuals aged 14+ in Ireland. Participants self-selected into the survey and sample representativeness is unknown. 28% experienced at least one of the housing difficulties identified, above the European average. The top types related to staying with friends and relatives temporarily and staying in a place not intended as a permanent home, hidden forms of homelessness which the current official estimates fail to capture. Risk of housing insecurity was not evenly distributed across all LGBTQ+ subgroups and co-occurred alongside other forms of exclusion. Higher odds were found among participants struggling with weekly expenses, having a mental health/neurodevelopmental and physical condition, identifying as transgender/gender non-conforming, bisexual, White non-Irish and having immediate unsupportive family. The study highlights a need for future studies on housing to collect data on gender and sexual identity and all forms of insecure housing, in order to assist policy makers to assess the need for specific anti-discrimination initiatives in relation to housing for LGBTQ+ people in Ireland.