More homeless in Dublin moving to rented accommodation

The number of people in Dublin moving out of homelessness and into rented accommodation has reached its highest level in almost two years, according to the most recent figures.

However, the number of people becoming homeless continues to increase, as does the number who are remaining homeless for more than six months.

Emergency accommodation was used by 2,456 adults in Dublin in the period July-September this year, compared with 2,413 from April-June and 2,306 from January-March.

Report

The figures are contained in the third performance report for 2014, from the

Dublin Region Homeless Executive

(DRHE), on homeless services. It covers July-September and finds 248 adults moved to tenancies, “the highest number . . . in one quarterly period since reporting began in 2012”.

Just 25 per cent of the 248 moved into private rented accommodation, pointing to the declining reliability of the private rented sector for low-income households and the increasing need for greater provision of public social housing.

This is starkly visible when one compares these latest figures with those since these quarterly reports began in January 2013. Of those homeless adults accessing tenancies in 2013, more than half moved into private rented accommodation.

Local authorities

The success in moving more households into local authority and approved housing can be attributed, said a spokeswoman, to a huge effort by the four Dublin local authorities to get every possible unit of accommodation on stream as quickly as possible.

However, the number of people in emergency accommodation continues to rise.

On the last night of this reporting period – September 30th – 1,491 people were in emergency accommodation, up from 1,414 on the last night of June, a five per cent increase.

The number of adults who were counted as having been homeless for more than six months increased from 774 in quarter two to 826 people in this period.