6,000 children to be homeless by 2020, says housing expert

More than 6,000 children will be homeless by 2020 unless there is a radical intervention.

The grim warning has come from housing expert Rory Hearne. His estimation is based on the 300% increase in child homelessness in the last three years.

“If we look at the increase, in Dublin in June 2014, there were 567 children homeless,” he said.

“In June of this year, that increased to 2,270. That’s a 300% increase in the number of children homeless in just three years.

“At that rate of increase, if we extrapolate to 2020 we could be seeing over 6,000 children homeless in Dublin, which is a shocking number. A number of 3,000 is shocking but I think we need to see, if we don’t have a radical intervention, where these numbers are going to go to.”

Mr Hearne was speaking at the launch of #MyNameis, a campaign by Inner City Helping Homeless to highlight the 2,895 children who are without a home.

The chief executive of the group, Anthony Flynn, said the purpose of the campaign, which saw hundreds of posters of homeless children’s faces go up across the country, is to get all interested parties working from the same plan.

Mr Flynn said: “We know we’re not going to solve the problem overnight or in the coming weeks but by bringing organisations together we’re trying to open discussion, we’re opening up a conversation right around the country between NGOs, political parties and let’s all start singing off the one cohesive plan to try and end child homelessness.

Call for action as #MyNameIs campaign highlights case of boy with cerebral palsy living in homeless accommodation with no disability access pic.twitter.com/jpRe2m137t

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) August 28, 2017

“Child homelessness is the biggest issue to face us as a society at the moment and the only way to change that is by opening up the conversation.”

Mr Hearne said that not only has child homelessness increased but so has the length of time that families spend in emergency accommodation.

“What is deeply worrying is that the number of families spending longer than 12 months in emergency accommodation has increased by 55%, from September of last year to February of this year,” said Mr Hearne.

“These numbers are absolutely unacceptable. They should be unacceptable at any time but now we are in the middle of a recovery as well. It is a question of priorities and political will.

“The solutions are there and we’ve outlined them for a number of years — the direct building of social housing by local authorities is a clear solution, the land is there.”

There are 730 hectares of state-owned land ready for construction, according to Mr Hearne.