30th April 2018

Peter McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, has today welcomed a very small decrease in the number of people accessing emergency homeless accommodation.

Earlier today, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government published figures for March 2018, indicating the numbers of people accessing State funded emergency homeless accommodation across the country. The figures for March show that 9,681 people were accessing services, a slight decrease from 9,807 in February 2018.

Pat Doyle, CEO of Peter McVerry Trust said “We welcome this small but important decrease in the numbers recorded as accessing homeless services in March. The first two months of the year saw a rapid rise in numbers accessing homeless accommodation, and we are very glad to see a drop off in March. The goal now is to make sure that this decrease is followed by more frequent and substantial decreases in the numbers of people in homeless services.”

Housing for Single People

Mr Doyle said an essential part of efforts to reduce homelessness is the provision of more one and two-bed housing units. “The majority of households in homelessness are single person households, however, there is a real lack of one and two-bed housing units at the moment and we are concerned that not enough additional one and two-bed units are being planned as part of social housing schemes to meet the needs of this cohort.”

“Peter McVerry Trust has encouraged the Minister for Housing, and his Department, to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that housing delivery better matches housing need, in order to ensure that all household sizes and types are adequately provided for.”