National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2011 - 2016

• Applying for social housing (housing lists);• Allocations policies;• Options and choices regarding tenure;• Buying a home;• Grants and loans;• Emergency accommodation;• Financial supports;• Housing supports;• Supports for independent living;• Support to access private rented accommodation;• Referral procedures.Main providers of information and advice11.5 Currently, a wide range of agencies, at both national and local level, provide housingadvice services for people with disabilities:• Statutory agencies, (housing authorities, Government Departments, HSE);• Voluntary and disability organisations (e.g. Threshold, Focus Ireland, DFI, InclusionIreland, Mental Health Ireland, National Federation of Voluntary Bodies);• Voluntary housing sector (e.g. Irish Council for Social Housing, Respond);• The Citizens Information Board (CIB) is the national support agency responsible forsupporting the provision of information, advice and advocacy on social services 115 ;• Private bodies (e.g. estate agents).115In 2010, 666,837 callers contacted Citizens Information Centres at over 257 locations nationwide with990,626 queries, a 2% increase over 2009. These concerns were dealt with by 107 information officers, 190scheme participants and 1,175 volunteers. The most frequent category of query relates to social welfarewhich covers 47% of all queries handled in 2010. Housing queries represent 5% of total queries or more than52,000 queries nationally.137