Babies among families sleeping rough in summer - report

Thirteen families with children, including babies, were found sleeping rough in Dublin last summer, according to an unpublished report.

The report from Focus Ireland said another 73 families at risk of sleeping rough were diverted into emergency accommodation between June and September.

In that period, 13 families with children were verified as having slept in cars or tents by the Housing First rough-sleeper outreach team, which is run jointly by Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust.

The figures come as it emerged that a family was found in the city last week sleeping rough with a two-year-old child. The case was “complex”, according to sources, and the family was now “safe”.

Last June, according to the report, the outreach team found three families sleeping rough in cars. In the same month, the intake team was called on to intervene for families from Dublin, Navan, Cavan, Kildare and Wicklow who were at risk of sleeping rough in the city.

In July the team supported 19 families at risk as well as at least four families who were verified as sleeping rough in their cars with children.

Accommodation refused

“One other family stayed persistently in a tent and refused all offers of accommodation,” it was reported.

In this case the team linked in with Tusla, Dublin City Council and gardaí.

In August the team received alerts about 13 families “who were at immediate risk of rough sleeping...During the month five families slept rough in cars”.

Four of these are now in emergency accommodation, and one family is no longer in contact with the service.

Adrian Quinn, project leader with the team, said while it had been established to engage with adult rough sleepers and divert them into housing services, they are seeing "more and more families" on the streets since March.

“These are a very vulnerable cohort, because it includes children - who should never, never be entering this environment.”

Social services

He said people found to have been sleeping rough usually said they had been doing so “for a couple of days to a week”, though they might have been doing so for longer and were reluctant to report this for fear of social services moving to take any children involved into care.

The vast majority of families had lost their homes in the private-rented sector, he said.

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, which has had to intervene in a number of cases, is recruiting a homelessness liaison officer who will take up the post later this month.

Fred McBride, Tusla’s chief operations officer, said the agency’s concern was “to support families experiencing homelessness” with the provision of family support, and to assess any child protection concerns that arise.