Peter McVerry Trust Statement on January 2020 Homeless Figures

Peter McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, said it is disappointed not surprised by an increase in the latest homeless figures published for January 2020.

Pat Doyle, CEO of Peter McVerry Trust said “Our hope was that the number of people in emergency accommodation would not reach 10,000 again, following such a sharp decline in the official figure for December 2019. While we cautioned that we would expect to see some increase in people in homelessness in January as is consistent with previous years it is nonetheless disappointing to be once again above 10,000 people.”

New Government

Mr Doyle said there was an urgent need for a stable government to be formed to continue our focus on efforts to tackle homelessness. “We need politicians to acknowledge the need for a government to be formed as soon as possible.

The new government needs to gives us stability, certainty and clarity of direction in the efforts to ramp up social housing delivery.

“Whoever forms the next government needs to make sure that when it comes to homelessness that efforts are strengthened to prevent new cases arising, and that in terms of social housing delivery it is acknowledged that single person households represent the largest group who need a new home. If we can do better on prevention measures and build homes to reflect the needs that exist, then we should start to see a sustained reduction in people accessing emergency accommodation.”