Rough sleeping on streets of Dublin prompts 80 extra beds

An additional 80 emergency beds for the homeless are being put in place in Dublin to address increasing rough sleeping in the city. This will bring the number of emergency beds in the capital to almost 1,500 – up from 1,396.

A spokeswoman for the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) said there would be supports with the accommodation, and the beds would be phased in between now and September. The executive hopes to provide 70 new units of emergency accommodation for homeless families, as homelessness among this group grows.

Homeless families

The latest figures indicate 143 homeless families being accommodated in hotels, including 299 children. This compares with 128 adults with dependent children in hotels on November 30th; 58 adults with children on May 31st, 2013; and 26 adults with children in hotels on November 30th, 2012.

The announcement of the new emergency beds and units comes as one voluntary group says it recorded 154 people sleeping rough in Dublin one night last week. This compares with an official figure of 127 from the DRHE, counted one night in April.

Inner City Helping the Homeless (ICHH), an independent, voluntary group founded in November, says the number of rough sleepers is “increasing all the time”.

Anthony Flynn, a bar manager in the north-inner city, founded the group in response to the growing numbers he was seeing as he went home from work after 2am. He says when the group first started going out, with food, hot drinks and clean clothes, they came across 64 rough sleepers. Last week they saw 110 on one night and 154 the next. They go out between 10.30pm and 2am twice a week but hope to increase to five nights by the end of the year.

A spokeswoman for the DRHE said there was an official count twice a year. “The robust and consistent method of enumerating rough sleeping in Dublin remains . . . whereby the same methodology is applied to all counts.”

Sam McGuinness, chief executive of the Dublin Simon Community, described the figures from the ICHH as "credible". Dublin Simon operates a soup run seven nights a week, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm.

Priority problem

“There is no doubt the numbers of rough sleepers are increasing all the time,” said Mr McGuinness. “Everyone is seeing it. There is a legitimacy to the ICHH group. The Lord Mayor [Christy Burke] is part of it and he has made it clear that homelessness is going to be a key priority for him.”