The number of people without a permanent roof over their head this Christmas will not be clear until official figures are published in the New Year. But all the signs are that the total will be yet another unhappy testament to the failure by a State – by some measures one of the wealthiest in the world – to address this most pernicious of problems.
The most recent figures from the Department of Housing are for the end of October and they show that the number of people in homeless accommodation had reached another ignominious high of almost 15,000, 4,645 of them children or minors. The annual rate of increase was over 13 per cent.
As with previous years the various agencies and organisations involved in the area have moved into top gear as they try and ensure that homeless people at least have a bed for the night over the holiday period. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive which coordinates the response of the four local authorities in the region will provide 400 extra beds this winter, including 104 “extreme weather” beds. These will be in addition to the more than 10,701 emergency beds already occupied by homeless people in Dublin. Similar measures are in place in other cities and urban areas.
The various voluntary bodies that provide services to the homeless, including Focus Ireland and the McVerry Trust, will shoulder their share of the burden, and the creaking system will muddle through another Christmas and into the New Year with no end in sight to the problem.
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The intractable nature of homelessness is one of the reasons that it did not feature in the recent general election campaign to the same extent as in previous ones, according to Focus Ireland. Without doubt the public has become habituated to both the sight of homeless people on the street and coverage of the issue in the media.
It remains to be seen what priority is attached to the issue by the incoming government. Its main expected participants, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, both place their plans to combat homelessness in the context of the wider housing crisis. And the availability of more accommodation is a prerequisite to both preventing homelessness and a rectifying it. But tackling homelessness also requires other policies and a particular focus.
The parties are also committed to putting more resources into Housing First, a programme that targets those who have tried and failed to escape homelessness because of addiction and other issues. Doing so will require addressing the finances and governance of the Peter McVerry Trust – the largest provider of Housing First. Beyond that, the next government must show a real willingness to get to grips with this issue if the grim monthly figures are not to be part of its record.