The number of people entering homeless services after leaving direct provision has surged since the pandemic, according to a confidential paper circulated to senior ministers and officials.
The paper, which the Local Government Management Agency drew up, shows that 16 per cent of all new presentations to emergency accommodation services are coming from settings including direct provision, prisons, psychiatric care, substance abuse treatment, hospitals or HSE childcare services.
Of the 200 households that sought emergency accommodation having just left a State service in the second quarter of last year, some 163 did so having come from direct provision, compared with 28 of the 53 households that sought accommodation in the first three months of 2022.
In line with growing homelessness figures overall, increasing numbers have been presenting as homeless after exiting other settings like prisons or childcare services provided by the Health Service Executive.
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Numbers arriving from childcare services grew from six to 20 over the same period, while those leaving prisons grew from nine to 10, although this has been as high as 25 in recent periods.
However, the growth has been less pronounced from these areas than from direct provision, an issue which homelessness campaigners say they have been warning of to no avail.
The Government has recently reformed aspects of immigration policy, with Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan arguing that population growth, partially driven by immigration, was putting too much pressure on services.
Tánaiste Simon Harris said last year that immigration figures were too high, and in December told The Irish Times that a significant number of people in emergency accommodation for homelessness don’t have a housing right in the Republic.
However, Focus Ireland, the largest non-statutory agency working with destitute families, said these claims were “wrong”.
Responding to the figures on those leaving direct provision and entering into homelessness services, Focus Ireland head of advocacy Mike Allen said campaigners had been warning of this issue for years but that nothing had been done.
He said the increase in numbers was being driven by the Government “squeezing” people who are in direct provision, having received permission to stay in the State, at which point they no longer have a residency right in State accommodation. However, many thousands remain, which campaigners say is due to the lack of options in the housing market.
“We have been saying for the last more than two years that there is a very significant issue of a large number of people who have been through asylum system and granted status and haven’t been able to find accommodation, and there needs to be a plan,” Mr Allen said, adding that those with refugee status have the same rights to access emergency accommodation as other residents in the State.
“They’re squeezing people with status out of direct provision and because of the housing crisis they’re not able to find accommodation, and they’re ultimately entering the homelessness system.”
Mr Allen said that these people had been through a robust and thorough assessment of their claim for international protection. He said solutions should be developed, such as charging those remaining in direct provision a rent if they had to stay for a longer period, or for local authorities to purchase some of the direct provision housing stock and convert it into homelessness accommodation.
He said the problem of people leaving direct provision and ending up homeless was “entirely predictable”, as was their difficulty in sourcing housing. “And yet we’ve given no constructive thought to how they’re going to be housed and we’re treating it as a big surprise,” he said.
