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Updated at 8.15pm
THERE WERE over 2,500 homeless children living in emergency accommodation last month.
Latest figures from the Housing Department show that there were 1,256 families homeless in Ireland in March, a rise of 32% since last year, and up 17 families on the previous month.
The number of single homeless adults also rose from 4,875 in February to 4,909 last month.
Commenting on the figures, Housing Minister Simon Coveney said they were a “stark indicator of the challenges we face as we remain focussed and determined to address this problem”.
He pointed to measures being taken to reduce the number of homeless people.
Homelessness charity Focus Ireland called for the Government to publish a strategy to deal with the issue of family homelessness specifically.
Rough sleepers
Rough sleeper figures for Dublin were also released today. They showed 138 homeless people sleeping rough in Dublin on a single night this month, an increase in over 30% since last year.
The spring rough sleeper count for the Dublin region was carried out on the night of 4 April and the morning of 5 April.
The count found a total of 138 people sleeping rough in this period. Of these, the majority (72%) were discovered within the Dublin City area (north and south).
The remaining 28% were found in Dublin’s other local areas: Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire.
Rough sleeper counts are carried out by officials working on behalf of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) twice a year. One count is carried out in spring and the other in winter.
The DRHE manages homeless services for the entirety of Dublin.
The latest count shows a drop of four people since the winter count, which took place in November.
It is up by 30% on last year’s spring count, during which 102 people were found to be sleeping rough.
The highest single count of rough sleepers in recent times occurred in winter 2014, when 168 people were found to be sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin.
The DRHE said it was working with Dublin City Council to bring another 150 emergency hostel beds on stream in the city for homeless people.
The council said it had housed 150 single persons in DCC rented accommodation in 2016 and 42 in the first quarter of 2017.
Breakdown
Of the 138 rough sleepers, 85 had previously accessed homeless services. Seven people had never accessed services and not enough info was available for the remaining 46 people.
85 of the people were Irish nationals, 13 were non-Irish. The nationalities of the remaining 40 could not be identified.
On top of the people sleeping rough outside on the night of the count, an additional 57 people slept in the Merchant’s Quay Night Café.
The Night Café provides mats on the floor for people to sleep, as well as support services.
Taking into account this figure, the total number of people counted without beds for the night in Dublin was 195. The Night Café first opened in January, 2015.
There were also 186 placements for beds in emergency hostels made through Homeless Freephone and Dublin’s Housing First on the night of the count.
The Housing First is made up of workers from charities the Peter McVerry trust and Focus Ireland and funded by the DRHE. Part of its work is to liaise with rough sleepers in Dublin on a regular basis, sourcing beds for them and maintaining a level of contact.
“Unique group”
The DRHE also said that a “unique group” of individuals who had arrived in Dublin in recent weeks from Romania were encountered on the night of the count.
The people had arrived here either seeking employment or having been promised work.
Half of this group have been repatriated to Romania since the night of the count.
The rough sleeper count has been carried out under the jurisdiction of the DRHE since 2007.
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And the majority of those 138 people have a family to go home to, or at least a parent that they can stay with, or even friends. Looking for free houses that’s all
@Negan: An how do you know this amazing revelation prey tell?
@Negan: there’s over 20 Roman gypsies a night on Henry Street recently sleeping in a big group. This is purely by choice. The figures can’t be trusted
@Negan are you joking some people have nobody you should count your blessings you have a home that could be you someday
@Negan: You do realise that you are only a pay cheque away from seeking those solutions for yourself.
Then you’ll be looking for your “free house”.
You don’t have the first clue about what’s going on in the country, yet you get on your high horse of judgement and slander people.
@Dave Doyle: and you realise that rough sleepers are only ever one bag of gear away from a job or being a productive member if society. Don’t be under any illusion, these are not people just after falling on hard times.
@cholly appleseed: those gypsies you talk at Debenhams and Arnotts have arrived from England after the announcement of Brexit. As European citizens they can travel freely to these shores with no problems. Taking this into account plus the fact that France is practically on lock down theres only one place these EU citizens going and it ain’t home.
@Negan: I think you’re wrong there . The ones are are actually sleeping rough on the streets are the ones that have problems such as addiction . The ones that are sleeping in hotels are the ones who are looking for their free houses.
@Dave Doyle: sorry but you needed to wake up .. the ones that declare themselves homeless are living in hotels waiting fir their free house .. I feel sorry for the rough sleepers . I think they are the ones that suffer the most.
@cholly appleseed: Some are, some aren’t. Some are on gear, as you put, it as a means of coping with their situation. Many were productive members of society until economy superseded society.
I’m not under the illusion that many of them are there all through their own fault.
Sinister Coveney is a corrupt liar, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. He told the nation that measures were in place to deal with our homeless crisis only a couple of months ago. He doesn’t care for ordinary people, he’s in Fine Gael.
@Suzie Sunshine: My mother got her “free house” after 18 yrs on the corpo’s housing list. Up ’till them we lived in what was no more than a tenement near the city center. She paid the required rent for this “free house” and when it was offered for sale to her, she bought it. So where does the “free” come into it?
Not everyone in society can afford to purchase their own home It is why social housing was built. It was stopped when the established political parties embraced neoliberalism. And made housing a commodity for all, disregarding the fact that not everyone can afford their own home. Not many, if any of the 23% in the country that earns 22,000 per yr will ever be able to afford their own home. Neither will they be able to afford much in rent the way things are going. Your pigeon holing of people not able to afford to rent or purchase a home is either down to pure snobbery, or you are totally out of touch with the reality of the circumstances people find themselves in.
@Dave Doyle: and those people should be moved out ( call it ethnic cleansing ) to beyond the suburbs so that workers with decent jobs can live close to the office and not be surrounded by needles
@kevin: there should be no social housing in Dublin city centre.. full stop .. no but but …
@Ian Breathnach: So as European citizens they can travel here no bother, but not to France, which is in the EU too??? Good logic!!
Here is an idea, how about we stop blaming the government for every single thing. When did it become the governments responsibility to handhold every citizen. Despite what the lefties like to say we actually stand up pretty well in regards to social services we provide in this coutry.They go as far as to put people in hotels to keep them off the street. Homelessness is just a part of urban living, you will find it in every major city across the world.
The majority of these people have mental health or addiction problems, simply putting them in a house does not resolve anything, they won’t last.
It’s the same rubbish every day where people are splurging out the same empty headed rhetoric, be it about politicians, bankers or housing.
@Dark Knight: Grace case
@Dark Knight: Because the government are to blame for government policy. It’s that simple.
@Dave Doyle: this would be the empty headed rhetoric I am speaking about. Do you expect them cure aids and cancer and bring about world peace as well?
@Dark Knight: To quote Enda from 2014, apologies for the toe rag source.
“I believe we best honour Mr. Corrie by acting once and for all on the issue of homelessness.”
@David Kavanagh: we are never going to end homelessness! How many of those sleeping rough were children, 0 I would imagine! I don’t think the government are doing that bad a job when you compare it to other western countries!
@Dark Knight: And you talk about “empty headed rhetoric” ???
I expect the government to legislate on behalf of ALL its citizens. That is their function,their sworn and paid for duty.
The government is responsible for whatever policies they enact.
@Dave Doyle: one word for you ‘budget’. It is something socialists have always failed to grasp. We went bankrupt a few years ago yet socialists still push on with the idea that we can be the only country in the world with zero homelessness and everything else free to go along with it. Where do you exactly think we are going to get this money from?
Dark Knight talking shite, your own version of reality is completely skewed, FG have this nation screwed.
@Frank Cauldhame: good point, we’ll thought out and put across. Maybe you should have mentioned vulture funds and bondholders for good measure.
@Dark Knight: If you are going to come on here with a superiority complex at least learn some grammer. It is “well” not “we’ll”. Thanks.
@Dark Knight: Socialism worked out very well for the banks and bankrupt developers. Didn’t it?
@Frank Cauldhame: you definetly just read the headline
@Dave Doyle: if that’s what you classify as socialism………
@Dark Knight: Like I said, superiority complex Batman !
@Frank Cauldhame: i imagine you believe alot of people have a superiority complex when they are dealing with you. All you have added on the topic is that FG screwed the country, I actually am genuinely curious to what your reasoning, if any, is behind that statement.
There’s €120 million earmarked for homeless services in Dublin alone this year.. I’ve got a sneaky feeling most of that is being spent on “administration”….
Actually a lot of them are Roma newly landed in Dublin and waiting handouts
Enda and Fine Gael/Labour legacy
@David Kavanagh: Howlin didn’t talk about housing in his speech Saturday night. He still thinks a job is a grauntee to a roof over your head and Labour still think that anyone with a job won’t be in poverty then. This is Joan Burton Alan Kelly Jan O’Sullivan & Howlin & Sean Sherlocks awful legacy
@Glen Quagmire: Sure didn’t they increase the min wage by a whole 10c
Sorry, people of the hard left. An increase in homeless people does not mean you suddenly become more entitled to a free house with a garden in the city centre.
O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!
Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house – a house of my own
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.
Not today nor yesterday since Padraic Colum wrote that. We’ve come a long way. Not.
@John O’Driscoll: could have just posted a link to that lad
@John O’Driscoll: where did I hear that before?
Could have but not so many’s maybe might have read it. Bit of culture no harm whenever.
Haven’t a notion where you might have d’you not remember yourself try ginkgo biloboa. Memory tree. Good for bad ones they say.
f Coveney gets to be Taoiseach, it just proves FG contempt to the “undeserving” lower classes while vulture funds can feast away as they somehow deserving
How does Eamon Gilmore, Ruari Quinn & Pat Rabbitte sleep at night with their massive early pensions. The poor champagne & smoked salmon socialists who cowardly ran away from the voters well before the 2016 election. Sure like FF in 2011 & of course Mary Harney & all the PDS who inflicted huge damage to this society with their Boston over Berlin bubble capitalism even though they only 4 TDs
@Glen Quagmire: how do they sleep? Probably quite soundly on a mattress of money.
We need to stop focusing on free social housing and start focusing on affordable housing for everyone, anyone on the national average wage €35,000 should have to option to buy a small one-bed apartmant or flat €120,000 within a commutable distance from work, this would need to legislation to restrict foreign investment in property from vulture funds, the sad thing is the government would actually make more property tax off individuals than they do of the vulture funds currently.
All that money spent on the quango that is irish water. How many homes would that have built. Shame on this government.
FG going to reward Coveney & Leo for a job well done? After all it is FG right wing housing for max profit policy going well
@Glen Quagmire: you are a great man for pointing out a problem but never seen to offer a solution. There is 500,000 more people in ireland than at the height of the boom, if you think prices are high now you have seen nothing yet!
Put them working on the council and give them a caravan.
Sleeping rough should be banned
Coveney. who attends bilderberg meetings. is over social housing?
you couldn’t make this up!!
We clearly need a social safety net that has smaller holes
Thank God we’ll soon have abortion..that should cut the numbers ..
Over 130 humans sleeping rough to night in Dublin, many are homeless for different reasons, mental promble,drugs, can’t afford to stay in apt,house, and so on. The rehab places are full, I count my luck stars that I am not one of them
Well DOB is starting to build now, Cue the big state spend to sort the problem.
Mark my words.
They make the Capital very unseemly,and what impression does it afford tourists
why is it that they only talk about dublin as if it were the only city with a homelessness problem??
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