Number of homeless soars by 400%

THE most recent homelessness figures have highlighted how bad the situation has become in Kerry in just a few short years.

As they attempt to justify their work, beleaguered Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy and his officials in the Housing Department repeatedly point to monthly figures that show modest increases in the number of people and families “leaving homelessness”.

However, far from improving, official figures show the situation has become markedly worse since the launch of the Government’s ‘Rebuilding Ireland’ plan.

In the four years since Eoghan Murphy launched the plan, the number of homeless people in Kerry has increased five-fold.

A look at the most recently published official figures, for October, showed that there were 161 homeless people living in emergency accommodation in Kerry.

This represents a massive 400 per cent increase on October 2016 when there were 31 homeless people in the county.

A further examination of the official figures from the Department of Housing shows just how quickly and sharply the crisis has escalated in Kerry.

In December of both 2014 and 2015 the Department’s statistics showed that there were 27 homeless people in the county. By October of 2016 (the next most directly comparable figure available) there were 31.

What happened next is unclear but the following year the numbers began to soar.

By October 2017 Kerry’s homeless population had doubled reaching 63.

Another jump in 2018 brought the figure to 111. The next 12 months saw another 50 people plunged into homelessness, bringing the total to 161 as 2019 drew to a close.

Compared to Dublin – where around 4,000 people are homeless – the Kerry figure are low but Kerry is one of the worst of the worst affected areas in the entire country when it comes to homelessness.

Aside from counties that are home to the major cities, only Kildare – in the heart of Dublin’s commuter belt – has a bigger homeless population than Kerry.

Waterford has a homeless population half that of Kerry. Mayo, a county often compared to Kerry in terms of geography and demographics, has 34. In Roscommon there are four.