Dublin city homeless group dealt with 158 people in one night
Inner City Helping Homeless said its services were “stretched”, with six volunteer groups “swamped within 40 minutes of their arrival” in outreach areas.
The following night the same teams dealt with 131 people and ICHH director, Anthony Flynn, said: “Organisations such as ourselves and other homeless charities are being stretched to the limit and cannot cope with the demand.”
The most recent quarterly report from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, for the period April through June, indicated that an additional 80 beds will be in place by the end of this month to meet demand for emergency accommodation.
The report shows that 2,413 people presented to homeless services during that period — of whom 500 were new to homelessness.
While 154 people moved to independent living in the second quarter of this year, another 163 people went into “less sustainable” arrangements such as staying with friends, hospital, residential treatment or prison.
Due to the lower number of people moving into tenancies, the average number of available bed spaces in emergency accommodation being allocated to people on a nightly basis fell from 176 in the first quarter of the year to 128 between April and the end of June.
There was also an increase in demand for sleeping bags with an average of 38 booked each night.
At the end of June, 1,414 adults were in emergency accommodation and 55% had been “in occupancy” for a minimum of six months. This included 334 in private emergency accommodation — including B&Bs and hotels. There were a minimum of 127 people sleeping rough.
