246 adults were in need of local authority-managed emergency accommodation in Limerick last November, figures released by the Department of Housing have revealed.
According to the Department’s monthly homeless report, 195 men and 105 women were homeless in the Mid West region between November 22 and 28. Of these, 246 were homeless in Limerick, with the remaining 54 in need of emergency accommodation in Clare.
Figures for family homelessness for the same period before Christmas showed 41 families in emergency accommodation throughout the Mid West, including 56 adults and 77 children.
Peter McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, expressed disappointment that the number of people in homelessness across the country climbed above 9,000 in November 2021.
The figures, which were released this week, show the number of people recorded as homeless rose to 9,099 in the last week of November.
“Although the number of people in need of emergency accommodation continued to rise, we continue to work with our colleagues in local authorities to offer additional emergency accommodation to cope with the numbers in need,” said Peter McVerry Trust chief executive Pat Doyle.
“We are also working to ensure that we ramp up delivery of new social housing opportunities to provide pathways out of homelessness for young people.”
Mr Doyle says that more one-bedroom homes need to be secured for people impacted by homelessness. He appealed to the owners of vacant or derelict properties to contact the charity to see how they can re-use those properties for social housing.
“We would also encourage the developers who are progressing small scale apartment schemes which contain one and two-bedroom apartments to make contact with us to see if we can acquire some of those units for social housing to help people exit homelessness,” he concluded.
