Council could do with additional units for housing the homeless
HOMELESS people should go and ask for help at Sligo County Council headquarters at Riverside during office hours.
Outside of that, they’re being urged to go to hostels. That’s according to Director of Services for Housing Bartley Gavin who was answering questions on our homelessness services put to him by Councillor Hubert Keaney.
“There seems to be an increase in the number of people sleeping rough here in the town,” he told the meeting.
“Last weekend I was engaging with a couple of these people to make sure they were being looked after,” he said.
Mr Gavin said the numbers of people presenting as homeless in Sligo varied month to month from 11 last January, to 4 last February and to a high of 14 last August.
“There’s always pressure on our funds. We probably could do with additional units and we’ ll be talking to the housing bodies about that,” he said. “It’s very complex,” he added.
The meeting heard earlier the Council provides 40 beds for the homeless, 23 Transition apartments and two houses which are managed by Focus Ireland.