More than 3,000 people in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow and more than 5,000 people around the State will be homeless this Christmas.
Despite internationally applauded economic success and the massive house-building programmes of the early 1970s, the problems of a population with no place to keep possessions, to close the door on the rest of the world or to get a little privacy are worse than ever.
And the reasons people are becoming homeless are growing more complex.
According to Ms Derval Howley, an outreach worker with the Dublin Simon Community, the homeless population is getting younger, and an increasing proportion of it has become homeless because of the property boom and the drugs problem.
"Private rented accommodation is harder and harder to come by. The old cheap bedsits in places like Rathmines and the South Circular Road just don't exist anymore," she says.
"Then the anti-social legislation [under which Dublin Corporation will not house people with a drugs conviction] has forced a lot of young drug-users into homelessness."
Ms Howley points also to the more traditional causes - psychiatric problems, family difficulties, the effects of institutional care and poverty.
As well as calls for an expansion in social and public housing, along with a range of other measures to tackle homelessness, the Simon Community of Ireland this year initiated a Christmas card campaign to encourage businesses and individuals to donate money to the charity rather than spend it on cards and postage. The Irish Times has been among those to do this.
The money raised will be spent on the community's soup runs, on which volunteers provide soup, sandwiches, blankets and company 365 nights a year; its outreach service where workers meet the homeless in their own environment; its weekly social club; and its follow-up service of volunteers who visit and support formerly homeless people.
Simon also runs emergency accommodation, such as that at Usher's Island in Dublin, and settlement projects, such as that at Sean McDermott Street in Dublin.
Though the majority of people sleeping on the streets are men, there are more homeless women and children, according to figures from the Homeless Initiative.
About 1,550 mostly young women with 820 children are regarded as the "hidden homeless". They stay with family or friends, but are termed homeless by local authorities because of the insecurity of their situation.
Then there are an estimated 1,350 single men and 170 children who use services for the homeless and find it difficult to get local authority housing.
The first Simon Community in Ireland was founded in Dublin in 1969 by students at Trinity College and University College Dublin. Their move came in response to a talk given on homelessness in London by a probation officer, Mr Wallich Clifford.
Simon's original mission was to go into the streets at night in groups with food, blankets and friendship. Thirty years on, the personnel and the reasons for homelessness have changed, but despite the promise of the early 1970s, the house-building programmes and commitments to eradicate homelessness, the necessity for such organisations as Simon has not changed at all.
