merrion street

Minister Murphy’s statement on June homeless figures

 *Adults associated with these families are included in the 6,048 figure

The report shows an increase of 28 adults and a decrease of 2 dependents.  Overall, the number of people accessing emergency accommodation increased slightly by 0.26% when compared to May.

Commenting on the figures, Minister Murphy said

Obviously any increase in people accessing emergency accommodation is unwelcome but it is good to see a decrease in the number of children and we are seeing a continued stabilisation of the numbers of people in emergency accommodation.  The increase from May to June 2018 was 26. For the corresponding period in 2017, we saw an increase of 242 adults and dependents so the change is much better when compared to last year.

Encouragingly other figures released today show that the number of families and individuals waiting for a social housing home across the country has fallen by 16% since the same time last year and that the provision of social housing is on target for 2018.

The Minister outlined that solutions were being delivered for those presenting as homeless stating

4,729 individuals exited homelessness into an independent tenancy during 2017 so solutions are being delivered.  However, the continuing number of presentations to homeless services means that too many people continue to rely on emergency accommodation.  My Department will be working closely with the local authorities to increase our efforts in the area of prevention.  On the 4^th of July I met with the Chief Executives from each of the local authorities at the 3^rd Housing Summit.  At the summit we agreed that resources will be allocated to preventing homelessness arising from family breakdown, one of the major drivers of homelessness identified in the recent report submitted to me by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE).  The key objective will be for the State to provide greater supports to families to avoid situations where individuals and families have to present to emergency accommodation. Where appropriate, the household will be linked with the Placefinder service and be supported to identify a HAP tenancy.

The Minister also highlighted that the Summit had agreed that a new national promotion campaign for the HAP, outlining the benefits of the scheme for both landlords and tenants would be implemented.  The campaign will address some of the issues raised in the recent reports from the Inter-Agency Group and the DRHE, which had highlighted the reluctance of some households to consider HAP. A separate survey looking at categoriastion issues is in the process of being completed and no miscategorisations were identified and corrected in the compilation of the June numbers.