Record 8,300 people now without a home

MORE than 8,300 homeless people were living in emergency accommodation last month – the highest number ever recorded, the Housing Minister has revealed.

Eoghan Murphy said yesterday that 8,347 people were homeless last month, which includes 3,124 homeless children. This is an increase of 1,638 people over the last year. In September of 2016, there were 6,709 people homeless.

Mike Allen, director of advocacy at Focus Ireland, said: ‘The Minister rightly highlights the extraordinary work which local authorities, homelessness organisations and the Department are doing in collaboration to support record numbers of households to move out of homelessness. However, far too little is being done to prevent people becoming homeless in the first place.’

Minister Murphy said: ‘There are still 690 families in hotels [and] while any one family in a hotel or B&B is one too many, this is still significantly down on the high point in March this year, when 871 families were in hotels and B&Bs. This is a 20% decrease.’

He said five new ‘family hubs’ had been set up in Dublin and three would be opened in Limerick and Cork by the end of the year.

‘We will continue to move families out of hotels and into hubs. More importantly, we will move families into homes as well. Hubs are better than hotels but they are only a first response,’ he said.