Homelessness has reached another record high in Ireland as the number of people using emergency accommodation rose to 16,614.<\/p>\n
Figures for September published on Friday show 11,376 adults and 5,238 children accessed emergency accommodation last month.<\/p>\n
The number of children recorded as homeless has risen from 5,145 to 5,238 between August and September.<\/p>\n
The number of children experiencing homelessness surpassed 5,000 in July and has increased each month since.<\/p>\n
Ber Grogan, executive director of the Simon Communities of Ireland, said governments had failed children forced into emergency accommodation.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cChildren should be thinking about dressing up and going trick or treating, not wondering where they\u2019ll sleep tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies should be planning fun activities \u2013 not counting how many nights they have left in an emergency bed. Young people should be starting their lives, not starting adulthood in homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statistics do not include people sleeping rough, \u201ccouch-surfing\u201d or those in hospitals, asylum seeker centres or domestic violence shelters.<\/p>\n
The number of people accessing emergency accommodation has been steadily increasing for years.<\/p>\n
It surpassed 10,000 people for the first time in 2019 and again in February 2020.<\/p>\n
An eviction ban was imposed from November 2022 until the end of March 2023 in an attempt to control rising homelessness numbers.<\/p>\n
Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin said it represented another \u201cvery, very grim\u201d set of figures, with homelessness up across almost all categories \u2013 including another 50 families.<\/p>\n
He called on Housing Minister James Browne to ensure his housing plan prioritises ending long-term homelessness.<\/p>\n
Mr O Broin said: \u201cThat means he needs to increase the targets for the delivery of social housing, he needs to increase the funding for those homes above what was announced in the budget in October.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot simply come here month after month and see these numbers increase, so it\u2019s now time for James Browne to put up or shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour housing spokesman Conor Sheehan said the figures were the result of government inaction on housing and asked why a housing tsar had not yet been appointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really, really sick and tired of coming out here every month and saying the same thing as the homeless figures inch and inch towards 20,000,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need the minister to come forward with his new housing plan. The way the figures are going, they will hit 20,000 before the end of this Dail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rory Hearne, housing spokesman for the Social Democrats, said the figures are what happen \u201cwhen you do not protect vulnerable renters, or prevent them from becoming homeless\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cAfter almost six years of Fianna Fail housing ministers, the homelessness crisis continues to spiral.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven Fianna Fail backbenchers agree that the Government is failing to get to grips with housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a complete and utter failure to prioritise those in and facing homelessness, showing an abhorrent lack of compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n
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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Homelessness has reached another record high in Ireland as the number of people using emergency accommodation rose to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29289,807,61,60,43,1650,13926],"class_list":["post-114513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-homelessness","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-social-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}