Charity pleads for Budget funding as homelessness numbers continue to spiral

Charities cannot understand how homelessness has been ignored in the last two budgets, according to Simon Communities of Ireland, as figures released on Friday revealed the number of people who are homeless continues to spiral.

There were 17,885 people in emergency accommodation in August compared to 17,527 in July, according to the Department of Housing’s official figures.

Of those people, 12,055 were adults, up 187 on the previous month, and the first time the figure has surpassed 12,000.

A total of 5,830 children were recorded as homeless, up 171 on July’s figures.

The Government must prioritise funding for homeless prevention in Budget 2027, according to Simon Communities of Ireland.

The community network’s executive director, Ber Grogan, said: “I’m shocked, upset, appalled. It was a bigger jump than I think any of us were expecting. When is enough going to be enough?”

“It’s heart-sore. It’s not even anger anymore. It’s you feel so despondent.

“With Budget 2027 just around the corner, we are pleading with Government to allocate budget for homeless prevention.

“The number of people living in homelessness is higher than ever before, yet homelessness has not featured in budget speeches over the last two years. That is deeply disappointing.”

Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said while there will be measures put in place in the Budget to help people who are homeless, it will not be enough.

He placed the blame for the crisis firmly in the hands of the Housing Minister, Taoiseach and Tánaiste.

“I’m hearing that there might be 10 or 15 million euro additional spending in the Budget for homeless prevention,” he said. “That is nowhere near enough.

“James Brown, Micheál Martin and Simon Harris will continue to push more and more families, more and more children, more and more single people into emergency accommodation. We need change, and we need it now.

“The problem is the Government aren’t listening, and the consequence is tonight more adults, more children, more young people and more pensioners will sleep in inappropriate and unacceptable emergency accommodation.

“It didn’t have to be that way. The Government could have done this differently. They’ve refused to listen, and if they continue to do that, this crisis will get worse.”

The monthly figures published by the Department of Housing do not account for people sleeping rough or those staying in domestic violence shelters.

Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne: “We have seen a significant increase in the number of children in emergency accommodation and the length of time they are spending in it, but the Government is turning a blind eye.

“Homelessness has been utterly normalised by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in that they have accepted a level of homelessness that no society should accept,” he said.

“That is completely destroying the lives of thousands and thousands of people, particularly children.

“It is intolerable that one child would spend a day in homelessness – yet we have record levels of children with their families in emergency accommodation, and we know that this has devastating, lifelong traumatic impacts on children.”

Budget 2027 should include provisions on homelessness, Mr Hearne said, but the Government’s focus is on the wrong area.

“The Government, rather than helping, has made it worse,” he said.

“I think there needs to be a real emphasis on prevention in this budget. We’re spending over half a billion every year on homelessness, and 90% of that is going to emergency accommodation. The majority of it going to for-profit private providers of accommodation.

“We should be investing most of it on homelessness prevention, preventing people from becoming homelessness. Whereas this government has it the complete wrong way round.”

There is also a need for the Government to review housing assistance payment (HAP) limits to allow more people to access the programme, according to opposition parties.

Labour TD Conor Sheehan said: “It’s a test for this minister to see does he want to engage constructively with the legislation to try and bring homelessness down in this country, or does he want to do his usual bluff and bluster and angry rhetoric?

“We also have not seen the review into the HAP limits. We had the largest quarterly increase in rents since 2002 in the first quarter of this year, yet where is the increased HAP limits?

“We know that the vast, vast majority of properties in this country are way beyond what the actual HAP rates are. We’ve been promised a HAP review. Where is the HAP review?

“There seems to be no urgency on the part of this Government to tackle homelessness and, in particular child and family homelessness.”