Peter McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, has said that the latest rise in the number of people recorded as homelessness is a trend that needs to be urgently reversed. The charity’s CEO Pat Doyle said there is an immediate need to stem the rise in homelessness to avoid the loss of hard-won gains over the past 18 months.

Pat Doyle, CEO of Peter McVerry Trust said “The rise in the number of people in homelessness last month is disappointing but of wider concern is that we have now seen a sustained rise in the number of people recorded as homeless for the past few months.

“There has been and continues to be enormous efforts from NGOs in partnership with the DRHE, Local Authorities and the Department of Housing to offer more supports to people at risk and provide pathways into housing for those who do end up in homeless services.

“Even with this latest increase we are still someway off the peak we experienced in 2019 but we have to ensure that we do everything we can to stop the increase, to stabilise the numbers and ultimately drive it down to much lower levels.

“In the short term we have to progress people into housing as quickly as possible and we have to find more housing solutions urgently or we risk further increases in homelessness in the coming months.”