Record number of newly homeless families in January

Repossessions in the buy-to-let sector now account for up to half of all families becoming homeless in Dublin, with poverty a major factor in three-quarters of new family homelessness cases.

The warnings from both the statutory and NGO sectors come as figures show more families became homeless in Dublin in January than in any previous month on record.

Some 134 families, including 269 children, presented to homelessness services in the capital in January. Of these, 125 families including 253 children, had never been homeless before.

The previous highest number of newly homeless families was in August 2015, when 78 families presented to homelessness services for the first time. The number of homeless children in Dublin now stands at 1,570, in 769 families, a 101 per cent increase since January last year.

‘Difficult to sustain’

The Dublin Region Homeless Executive, which co-ordinates homelessness services across the capital, last night warned it would be “difficult to sustain” last year’s relatively successful rate of move-on from homelessness into social housing in 2016, because the “social housing stock in the region is finite”.

Sources warn that with buoyancy returning to the tourism market and hotels withdrawing from housing homeless families, it will become increasingly difficult to find hotel accommodation.

Dublin Simon last night described the latest figures as "extremely alarming", while Focus Ireland said they were "shocking". An analysis of the 125 newly homeless families, conducted by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, found 83 per cent had become homeless after a notice to quit their private rented accommodation, relationship breakdown or overcrowding.

Recent cases

“The repossession of buy-to-let landlords, often by banks owned by the Irish people, is a growing phenomenon and may account for up to half of the recent cases of family homelessness,” Focus Ireland’s director of advocacy

Mike Allen

, said.

An analysis of the last spike in August, found three-quarters of families presenting as homeless had incomes below the 60 per cent median poverty line of €207.42 a week, the executive said.

Despite a Government promise to end long-term homelessness by 2016, the first month has brought us the worst family homelessness figures on record.

A spokesman for Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly said it underlined the need for all stakeholders to support the delivery of modular housing. The first 22 of up to 500 units are due to have their first occupants in Ballymun, in the next week.

“The reality is only the Government parties have made a commitment to build 500 of these this year . . . It is fair to say that other parties are abandoning these families in the short term,” Mr Kelly said.