A Dublin mother and her three young children, who have been homeless for a number of weeks, could not access emergency accommodation this week because the council’s credit card had “maxed out”.
A spokeswoman for Dublin Region Homeless Executive confirmed the credit card used by the “central placed service” had reached its maximum limit, but said the limit had now been extended.
She said it had passed its maximum limit “due to the significant volume of families that are presenting to the local authorities as homeless on a daily basis and who are subsequently being accommodated in commercial hotels”.
The situation came to light as a mother of three children, all aged under 12, was not able to access emergency accommodation on Tuesday or Wednesday night, according to Fianna Fáil councillor Jack Chambers. He said she had come to him for help after she and her children had spent two nights sleeping indoors, in an industrial estate in the Fingal area.
“The house they had been renting was sold a few weeks ago and she had been accessing emergency accommodation for two or three nights at a time in different places over the past few weeks.
“On Tuesday she was told she would have to leave the accommodation she was in with her children as the Council’s credit card had maxed out. I’m actually speechless. This is an extremely disturbing development in Dublin’s spiralling homeless crisis.
“Homeless families were literally turfed out onto the streets because the funds were not there to provide temporary accommodation. The fact that a woman and her young children were forced to sleep rough in an industrial estate is a damning indictment of the Government’s attitude to the homelessness crisis.”
The DRHE spokeswoman said the limit on the card had now been extended, but added this was not the first time the limit had had to extended and homeless services for families were at “absolute capacity”.
The most recent figures from the Executive, covering the week June 22nd to June 28th, indicate there were 531 families, including 1,122 children in Dublin in emergency accommodation.
This compares with 264 families with 567 children in emergency accommodation in June last year.
“We continue to expand and implement measures to respond to the housing needs of homeless households,” said the spokeswoman. “However, the significant challenge remains that the level of families presenting to homeless services is not keeping a pace with the number of families that are moving out of homeless services and back into independent living.”
