Rosie

A film every Irish person should watch

There were 9,987 people homeless in the week of January 21st-27th 2019 across Ireland. This figure includes adults and children. The number of homeless families has increased by 83% since January 2016. More than one in three people in emergency accommodation is a child. However, this number does not include 'hidden homelessness' which refers to people who are living in squats or 'sofa surfing' with friends. Furthermore, women and children staying in domestic violence refuges are not included in these homeless emergency accommodation counts. The national figure also does not include people who are sleeping rough.

In November 2018, the official rough sleeping count confirmed 156 people sleeping rough in Dublin, with an additional number in the Night Café, without a place to sleep.

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In the past, most people using emergency accommodation were single adults. But in the last three years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of families becoming homeless, and in January 2019, there were 1,614 families accessing emergency accommodation. This includes 3,624 children.

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According to Focus Ireland research and analysis, the overwhelming number of families becoming homeless had their last stable home in the private rented sector, and the crisis in this sector is the immediate cause of their homelessness - landlords selling up or being repossessed, shortage of properties to rent, scarcity of properties accepting rent supplement, and high rents.

Most of the families becoming homeless have never experienced homelessness before and never thought this could happen to them. Thousands more families are struggling on very low incomes or social welfare and many are falling into serious housing difficulties as rents continue to rise.

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_At the end of January 2019, there were over 893 young people (adults aged under 25) living in emergency homeless accommodation. This rep...