Homeless charity Focus Ireland is calling on the Government to adopt a policy that dedicates a portion of the new social housing supply to long-term homeless families.
The call comes as the charity unveils its annual report today that highlighted a 12.5 per cent increase in the number of people it supported in 2023.
A strategy of dedicating a portion of new social housing to long-term homeless families had been instrumental in significantly reducing homelessness during the pandemic, Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
In advance of Budget 2025 and with the prospect of a general election, Focus Ireland urged that more accommodation become available for those on the emergency accommodation protocol.
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The Focus Ireland report showed it supported 18,000 people in 2023, compared to 16,000 in 2022. The report also showed Focus Ireland helped 1,757 households to keep their home (657 households) or support their exit from homelessness (1,100 households), an increase of nearly 10 per cent on the previous year (1,598).
The number seeking assistance has been increasing month over month for the past few years and it is “far too high”, said Mr Dennigan.
“One of the frustrations that we encounter all the time is that when we start to talk about homelessness as a particular issue, the answer we get is about housing. And while they are connected and very closely interlinked, they’re not the same issue, and you need to look at homelessness in a much more holistic way,” he said.
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“You need a home, you need a base to work from, but you also need the support to keep that home for the future.”
Focus Ireland was “starting to see chinks of light” around increased social housing becoming available, he said, adding: “It’s long overdue. And there’s much more momentum that needs to be built.”
Mr Dennigan said although momentum was welcome, there was a need for more one-bed accommodation and more family accommodation “because there’s a real danger that both single people who need one-bed accommodation and our larger families get left behind in emergency accommodation”.
A policy that dedicates a portion of the new social housing supply to long-term homeless families made more sense, he added.
“And we’re asking for something of the order of 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the social housing that becomes available to be dedicated, while we have this crisis, to people who are homeless ... that the people who are homeless for a period of time, maybe 18 months or two years, get prioritised for social housing,” Mr Dennigan said.
“We don’t believe that people would declare themselves homeless for that period of time simply to get a jump on the list, shall we say. But at the moment we believe that the system is very unfair and very unfair to people who are homeless and also causing significant trauma and having long-term effects on their wellbeing.”
Mr Dennigan said it was vital to emphasise that homelessness was not inevitable and it was possible to end homelessness with the right policies.
Among the other highlights in the Focus Ireland annual report for 2023 are that 1,851 families engaged with the charity, an increase of 11 per cent compared with 2022, and more than 4,223 children were supported by the charity.