Homelessness on the rise (over 130 more children) - Mod Warning Post #392

Slydice

In September 2018, the number of children in homelessness increased by: 136.
The number of children who became newly homeless was: 193.


The Homelessness Report September 2018 has been released:
https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/homeless_report_-_september_2018.pdf

Homelessness is on the rise. I've updated the two charts based on the totals they give.

Homelessness (Adults)


Family Homelessness


The latest report does not have commentary where previous reports did. They used to include:

The long term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes

or:

The root cause of increased homelessness is the supply shortage across the housing sector, which in turn is a result of the recent economic collapse and the associated damage to the construction sector. Accordingly the long-term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes.

Coverage of this report:
Almost 200 children became homeless in the past month in Dublin
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/almost-200-children-became-homeless-in-the-past-month-in-dublin-1.3674650

according to Focus Ireland, a total of of 88 families with 193 children became newly homeless in Dublin in September

'Government appears to just accept this as a natural phenomenon' - 193 children became newly-homeless last month
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/government-appears-to-just-accept-this-as-a-natural-phenomenon-193-children-became-newlyhomeless-last-month-37455574.html

193 children became newly homeless last month, there are now 207 families without a home - 88 entered emergency accommodation and 45 left it last month.

The number of homeless children in Ireland has risen by 136 in the space of a month
There are now collectively 9,698 people living in homeless accommodation across Ireland.
https://www.thejournal.ie/homeless-ireland-september-figures-4303866-Oct2018/

Much more can – and must be – done if we are to end this terrible human crisis and protect the childhoods of nearly 4,000 children currently homeless

Tweets:
https://twitter.com/FocusIreland/status/1055142703191810053
https://twitter.com/MyNameCampaign/status/1055198426642685952
https://twitter.com/SimonCommunity/status/1055153667500838912
https://twitter.com/ICHHDUBLIN/status/1055150132142989313
https://twitter.com/PMVTrust/status/1055181050303918081



Other recent media on homelessness and supply shortage in Ireland:
'Worrying trend' of people becoming homeless younger
https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2018/1019/1005174-novas-limerick/

Those aged between 18 and 21 almost doubled to 9%, while over 65% of those accessing accommodation services were aged under 40.

Residential property prices have risen by 8.6% so far this year
https://www.thejournal.ie/cso-house-prices-ireland-2018-4276199-Oct2018/

HOUSE PRICES HAVE risen by 8.6% so far this year, according to the latest data from the Central Statistics Office.

Rent hikes of up to 25% spark protest outside landlord’s offices
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/rent-hikes-of-up-to-25-spark-protest-outside-landlord-s-offices-1.3653254

Rent pressure zones were introduced in 2016 in Dublin and other areas where the costs of accommodation for tenants were rising fastest.

A young woman tenant who did not wish to be named said she believed Ireland’s largest private landlord Ires Reit “have found a way around the rules”.

'Budget 2019 means students will be left out in the cold for another year, quite literally'
https://www.independent.ie/business/budget/comment-reaction/comment-budget-2019-means-students-will-be-left-out-in-the-cold-for-another-year-quite-literally-37401136.html

The most disheartening take away of this years Budget was the little done to alleviate the student rental crises, with no significant increases towards purpose built student accommodation.

With many members of the USI and Irish Federation University Teachers (IFUT) calling it a landlord’s Budget, not a student’s Budget.

Gatling

Do we actually need another thread on the same subject you have been championing for the last while

GGTrek

Gatling wrote: »

Do we actually need another thread on the same subject you have been championing for the last while

It wouldn't surprise me if the OP has political aims. Left wing groups are known to be paid to splatter and do political propaganda in all sorts of forums with dubious data. For sure his prescient skills in 2012 were not very good at all and now he is attached to the homeless bandwagon!

Huntline

Damn OP, talk about making a thread hard to follow. No need to quote everything then spam us with links. Think I saw a 50%off voucher link for KFC on your post somewhere

D3V!L

homeless
/ˈhəʊmlɪs/Submit
adjective
plural noun: the homeless; adjective: homeless
(of a person) without a home, and therefore typically living on the streets.
"the plight of young homeless people"
synonyms: without a roof over one's head, on the streets, vagrant, sleeping rough, living rough; destitute, down and out, derelict, itinerant; informaldossing; formalof no fixed abode
"the plight of young homeless people"

Have you got figures for how many people were housed in the same period?

Hopefully, the new AirBnb clampdown will make a difference.

handlemaster

What is homelessness ?

Samuel T. Cogley

So OP given the recent piece about the poor allocation of social housing it it time to start moving people around to make better use of social housing?

We should ban homelessness like the Hungarians.

https://www.google.ie/amp/www.thejournal.ie/rough-sleeping-banned-hungary-4286956-Oct2018/%3Famp%3D1

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Have you got figures for how many people were housed in the same period?.

Any response to this?

Slydice

Womens Homeless Statistics and the Budget
For Ireland, Womens Homeless Statistics rose from 1263 (33% of the total) in 2011 to 2333 (44% of the total) in 2017
(reference: http://womenshomelessness.org/resources/statistics/ireland/)
"In Europe, the rate is much lower where women typically account for between 20% and 33% of the homeless population"
"research found that 66% of homeless families in Ireland are headed by lone parents, most of whom are women"
(reference: https://www.thejournal.ie/homeless-women-3489725-Jul2017/)
"Lone parents, however, present a particular case. Most lone parents are women, and lone parents lost proportionally more than singles without children during the austerity period. This higher loss can be attributed to reductions to Child Benefit during the austerity period. Additionally, when singles without children were making budgetary gains during the recovery period, lone parents continued to see a fall in their disposable income due to policy reforms"
"In summary, gender differences in the impact of Irish budgetary policy over the past decade have stemmed from the fact that women are more likely than men to be lone parents"
(reference: https://www.esri.ie/pubs/bkmnext367.pdf)


The Homelessness Report October 2018
The Homelessness Report October 2018 has been released:
https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/homeless_report_-_october_2018.pdf

Homelessness is on the rise. I've updated the two charts based on the totals they give.

Homelessness (Adults)


Family Homelessness


The latest report does not have commentary where previous reports did. They used to include:

The long term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes

or:

The root cause of increased homelessness is the supply shortage across the housing sector, which in turn is a result of the recent economic collapse and the associated damage to the construction sector. Accordingly the long-term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes.

Coverage of this report:
Nearly 10,000 recorded as homeless in October - report
https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/1129/1014140-homeless-figures/

Of the 9,724 people without a home, 5,999 were adults and 3,725 were children.

The number of homeless adults in Ireland has risen by 130 in the space of a month
https://www.thejournal.ie/homeless-figures-october-4366735-Nov2018/

Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan welcomed the fact that the number of people in emergency accommodation isn’t rising as fast as last year.
However, he said: “It is totally unacceptable and wrong that at the same time one family became homeless every eight hours in October in Dublin alone.

Housing protesters take over Dublin bridge to highlight crisis
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/housing-protesters-take-over-dublin-bridge-to-highlight-crisis-888864.html

On the day the Government published their homeless figures for October, now standing at 9,724, Take Back The City, a group campaigning for better housing conditions, took to the bridge to display a banner in protest of housing cuts that they say adversely effect women fleeing domestic violence.

Tweets:
https://twitter.com/PMVTrust/status/1068157067842732032
https://twitter.com/ICHHDUBLIN/status/1068170594921926656
https://twitter.com/SimonCommunity/status/1068154966982963201
https://twitter.com/FocusIreland/status/1068122588856152067



Other recent media on homelessness and supply shortage in Ireland:
'Imposing the shame of homelessness on older children is cruel'
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/imposing-the-shame-of-homelessness-on-older-children-is-cruel-37541439.html

"They go to school and they can't invite their friends back. Some of them don't want to tell their friends where they are because they're so ashamed of it. Imposing that sort of shame on children is wrong, and it's cruel as well, and we've no right to do it," she says fiercely.
Asked if these children should be getting counselling, she says: "Of course they should be and they will need it later.
"What is the effect of it, we don't know fully. We can't tell because we haven't seen it before."

No changes to Central Bank's mortgage rules
https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/1128/1013802-mortgage_rules/

Meanwhile, chief economist at Davy Group, Conall Mac Coille, has said the review of mortgage lending rules is masking the main issue, which he said is the lack of housing.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Mac Coille said the review is "tinkering at the fringes" and "it's not going to ultimately change the fact that there's a lack of housing supply, hence housing affordability is stretched".
"We could give out as many mortgages as we liked, but it wouldn't change the fact there's a lack of housing," he added.
He added that a sustained and substantial expansion in housing supply is the best solution to the house price inflation problem.

Two-thirds of renters struggling to meet monthly rental costs
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/two-thirds-of-renters-struggling-to-meet-monthly-rental-costs-886770.html

"They are people who would probably have always rented but some would be aspiring to home ownership, but it's more difficult for them because they cannot save a deposit.
"That's the single biggest issue, because so much of your income is being used to pay rent, there's no surplus there to save."

Students ‘sleeping in cars’ because of shortage of rental accommodation
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/students-sleeping-in-cars-because-of-shortage-of-rental-accommodation-1.3707475

Michelle Byrne, a Union of Students of Ireland (USI) official, told the committee that the housing system was “buckling under the pressure in a very real way for students”, who could not afford rising rents.
“It is becoming a significant barrier to accessing education,” she said. “On the night of the census in 2016, there were 429 homeless students in Ireland, making up over 8 per cent of the total homeless numbers.”

It’s great to see the number of homeless families decreasing.

Gatling

Op do you have an actual opinion or are you just spamming the forum with copy and paste walls of text

Amirani

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It’s great to see the number of homeless families decreasing.

Really interesting how all the charities involved cherry pick the statistics each month. This month they've focused on the increase in adults homeless and ignored the drop in family homelessness. Previous months it's been the opposite.

Charities, like politicians etc, are generally pretty disengenous with their use of statistics.

Amirani

Amirani wrote: »

Really interesting how all the charities involved cherry pick the statistics each month. This month they've focused on the increase in adults homeless and ignored the drop in family homelessness. Previous months it's been the opposite.

Charities, like politicians etc, are generally pretty disengenous with their use of statistics.

It’s like the saying, there’s lies, damned lies and statistics.

If homelessness disappeared in the morning, so would numerous charities. Homelessness is their life blood. It’s an industry supported by the taxpayers. Anyone can find themselves in difficulties, through no fault of their own. But when you hear “Single” parents, living in a relatives bedroom with 3 children, going on to have another 2 children in a short space of time, you have to question their motives.

Assetbacked

Stop having ****ing kids you can't afford.

jimmycrackcorm

Assetbacked wrote:

Stop having ****ing kids you can't afford.

Which is fine to say brie you have them, but we're all only a few paychecks away from being homeless after.

Klonker

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

Which is fine to say brie you have them, but we're all only a few paychecks away from being homeless after.

I'd be pretty sure most of our homeless are people who have never worked. Obviously there'll be a few who fell on hard times but majority would be Margaret Cash types.

Graces7

Amirani wrote: »

Really interesting how all the charities involved cherry pick the statistics each month. This month they've focused on the increase in adults homeless and ignored the drop in family homelessness. Previous months it's been the opposite.

Charities, like politicians etc, are generally pretty disengenous with their use of statistics.

Also in any country but Ireland, no one in b and b etc would be listed as homeless

Only here is it insisted that if you have a roof, heating, food etc you can be on the homeless list.

Subutai

Graces7 wrote: »

Also in any country but Ireland, no one in b and b etc would be listed as homeless

Only here is it insisted that if you have a roof, heating, food etc you can be on the homeless list.

Untrue. We have a narrower definition than normal when it comes to homelessness. Other countries include people who are staying with friends. Some even include those in institutions.

There's no agreed upon definition, so we find it fairly difficult to do comparisons.

About half of the surveyed countries also cover people living in non-conventional dwellings and people living temporarily with family and friends due to lack of housing, while only 7 countries also include people living in institutions in their homelessness statistics.

We're not one of those countries. So really we can only compare ourselves to the countries who record homelessness in a similar way to us - all of the others we would expect to be much higher as they have a more broad definition of homelessness.

Taking that more honest view, we are better than only Austria, France, and Slovenia. We are on par with Italy. We also do better than Canada and Chile. We do worse than Lithuania, Portugal, Spain and Croatia - and worse than Japan. We're also higher than some countries who take the broader view of homelessness, like Mexico and Estonia, and we're quite close to a number of others even with them taking that broader view.

The international comparisons really don't look great.

https://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC3-1-Homeless-population.pdf

Franz Von Peppercorn

Klonker wrote: »

I'd be pretty sure most of our homeless are people who have never worked. Obviously there'll be a few who fell on hard times but majority would be Margaret Cash types.

Doubt that. How would they become homeless if they have homes for life.

Homeless in this boom is probably the low paid, increasing rent etc.

Grumpypants

"Homeless" is being used very liberally. I remember a protester who turned down three free houses claiming they were "homeless".

There is a culture of living off hand outs passed down through generations that make people think their free house should be in the area they choose to live in.

And they think they are a victim of a cruel society that doesn't care.

Graces7

Subutai wrote: »

Untrue. We have a narrower definition than normal when it comes to homelessness. Other countries include people who are staying with friends. Some even include those in institutions.

You are incorrect. incorrect; I have family in Canada who work with the authorities there, feeding the street people, counting the homeless, and if they are counter surfing etc they are not counted.

If they are in a shelter, in temporary accommodation, then they are not homeless. Period. They are safe in shelter

Unlike the literally thousands sleeping rough all over Canada, .... we give out bales of hay in winter to try to save them bu still they are found frozen to death

Thee is no real emergency. . Go to any Greece and many countries and see a real emergency situation.

Subutai

Graces7 wrote: »

You are incorrect. incorrect; I have family in Canada who work with the authorities there, feeding the street people, counting the homeless, and if they are counter surfing etc they are not counted.

If they are in a shelter, in temporary accommodation, then they are not homeless. Period. They are safe in shelter

Unlike the literally thousands sleeping rough all over Canada, .... we give out bales of hay in winter to try to save them bu still they are found frozen to death

Thee is no real emergency. . Go to any Greece and many countries and see a real emergency situation.

You have anecdotes. I have the official criteria on which the counts are based and which the OECD uses for comparison.

It's not nice when the facts don't suit your narrative. That doesn't make them any less true. Our definition of homelessness is more restrictive than many countries. Contrary to your assertions here, the Canadians include those in shelters as homeless.

the_syco

Is there figures of what percentage of the homeless have turned down a house?

Gatling

the_syco wrote: »

Is there figures of what percentage of the homeless have turned down a house?

I believe it's in the hundreds homeless but refusing offers of housing

JC01

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Which is fine to say brie you have them, but we're all only a few paychecks away from being homeless after.

If you can’t provide the security that your a hell of a lot more financially stable than “a few paychecks” being the difference in maintaining a roof over your own head and not then you absolutely cannot afford kids and to have them in that situation is criminally reckless as far as I’m concerned.

It drives me demented listening to these bleeding hearts tell me that I should feel guilty and obliged to pay for other people’s selfish decisions.

pwurple

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Which is fine to say brie you have them, but we're all only a few paychecks away from being homeless after.

Wtf? No we’re not.

It would take me a hell of a long time to use up my insurance, my rainy day fund AND the patience of every one of my family members and friends to end up homeless.

Do people live in a vacuum? Protect yourself.

Wheeliebin30

pwurple wrote: »

Wtf? No we’re not.

It would take me a hell of a long time to use up my insurance, my rainy day fund AND the patience of every one of my family members and friends to end up homeless.

Do people live in a vacuum? Protect yourself.

This is the nonsense peddled by the left.

Despite the fact there are people nearly 9 years still in houses which they haven’t been paying their mortgage.

Or the 50 million owed to the council in arrears.

jimmycrackcorm

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

but we're all only a few paychecks away from being homeless after.

This is certainly not the case for everyone, I’d wager a large proportion of people are not in such a precarious position.

Kivaro

pwurple wrote: »

Wtf? No we’re not.

It would take me a hell of a long time to use up my insurance, my rainy day fund AND the patience of every one of my family members and friends to end up homeless.

Do people live in a vacuum? Protect yourself.

Ah, you're talking about personal responsibility now.
Can't be talking sensible like that. It is frowned upon.

Gatling

There seems be be a want for the perfect new build council house in the perfect estate or they are not interested,
And add the fact people in hotels pay zero financial contributions to there says or utilities and In cases meals .

Makes you wonder why nobody seems to want to leave the so called hellish conditions living in a hotel brings

hmmm

No-one believes the "homeless" figures any more, too many people gaming the system. People who live in a smaller house than they would like, or who live at home with family are not "homeless".

Let's get a proper set of figures for a start.

sabat

Coverage of this report:
Almost 200 children became homeless in the past month in Dublin
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/soci...blin-1.3674650
Quote:
according to Focus Ireland, a total of of 88 families with 193 children became newly homeless in Dublin in September

Do they have a breakdown of what percentage of these are newly arrived in the country and not, as the article implies, families who were already living here and lost their home? It is a fact that people are showing up and going straight into the system, a problem that will only become worse as Brexit looms closer. No-one who lives or works in Dublin city centre can have failed to notice the increased number of gypsy families around the place.

Slydice

The Homelessness Report November 2018 has been released:
https://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/homeless_report_-_november_2018.pdf

Homelessness is on the rise. I've updated the two charts based on the totals they give.

Homelessness (Adults)


Family Homelessness


The latest report does not have commentary where previous reports did. They used to include:

The long term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes

or:

The root cause of increased homelessness is the supply shortage across the housing sector, which in turn is a result of the recent economic collapse and the associated damage to the construction sector. Accordingly the long-term solution to the current homeless issue is to increase the supply of homes.

Coverage of this report:
Almost 10,000 people to be homeless for Christmas
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/almost-10000-people-to-be-homeless-for-christmas-893396.html

“The overall picture is very clear,” Mr Allen said.
“The situation is continuing to deteriorate very rapidly. The [government] policies are not having the effect we would like.”

Almost 10,000 in emergency accommodation for Christmas
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/almost-10-000-in-emergency-accommodation-for-christmas-1.3738787

Pat Dennigan said. “We need greater action and must not to tolerate the fact that nearly 4,000 children are homeless in our society.

New figures reveal almost 10,000 people homeless in Ireland at Christmas
https://www.joe.ie/news/ireland-homeless-figures-2018-652649

Focus Ireland responded to the data, contending that a shift in government policy is "vital" in 2019.
"This is wrong and must change," noted the charity.

Tweets:
https://twitter.com/FocusIreland/status/1075797158014664704
https://twitter.com/PMVTrust/status/1075802974574784512
https://twitter.com/ICHHDUBLIN/status/1075845663143940104
https://twitter.com/Barnardos_IRL/status/1075815092355248132



Other recent media on homelessness and supply shortage in Ireland:
Focus Ireland: Why are so many families becoming homeless?
The root cause of the homeless crisis in Ireland is the broken housing system
https://www.irishtimes.com/advertising-feature/focus-ireland-why-are-so-many-families-becoming-homeless-1.3730061

More than one in three people in emergency accommodation is a child. However, this number does not include ‘hidden homelessness’ which refers to people who are living in squats or ‘sofa surfing’ with friends. Furthermore, women and children staying in domestic violence refuges are not included in these homeless emergency accommodation counts. The national figure also does not include people who are sleeping rough.

Report finds warning signs today similar to those ignored before economic crisis
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/report-finds-warning-signs-today-similar-to-those-ignored-before-economic-crisis-892993.html

It is beginning to suffer from capacity issues like rapid house price inflation and traffic congestion.
It has found warning signs like these were ignored prior to the economic crisis and unsustainable growth will lead to a return to boom and bust.

Soaring fuel and rental costs push up the cost of living
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/two-thirds-of-renters-struggling-to-meet-monthly-rental-costs-886770.html

in November, compared to the same month last year, while it was 7% more expensive to rent one’s home

NIMAN

the_syco wrote: »

Is there figures of what percentage of the homeless have turned down a house?

I'm sure each county council must have figures.

Donegal released theirs last week. 40%.

Gatling

So op still no opinion on any of this ,

Other than copy and paste news dumps

uli84

Are we talking people living in the hotels or actually homeless?

Graces7

Subutai wrote: »

You have anecdotes. I have the official criteria on which the counts are based and which the OECD uses for comparison.

It's not nice when the facts don't suit your narrative. That doesn't make them any less true. Our definition of homelessness is more restrictive than many countries. Contrary to your assertions here, the Canadians include those in shelters as homeless.

I have family working in Canada with the homeless ie street dwellers, mothers living with their kids in cars. They take part in govt audits every year.

So away with your "anecdotes" please.! No anecdotes about eg providing bales of hay to folk sleeping on the streets to try to keep them alive, or finding folk they fed the day before frozen to death. These are the realities my family and colleagues deal with; also you do need to take climate into account

And yes I am talking about rough sleepers. Not hostels.

Last audit was nearly 3 million.

Graces7

Nicole Gigantic Seashell wrote: »

This is certainly not the case for everyone, I’d wager a large proportion of people are not in such a precarious position.

Proof please?

Graces7

Klonker wrote: »

I'd be pretty sure most of our homeless are people who have never worked. Obviously there'll be a few who fell on hard times but majority would be Margaret Cash types.

Proof please? and are you talking re whole families? Easier to blame?

Graces7

Graces7 wrote: »

Proof please?

Proof of what exactly?

Old diesel

Actually people in the homeless sector reckon that the true homeless figure is HIGHER then stated due to the Departments recategorisation of some people who stay in section 10 funded accommodation as NOT homeless.

One of the new things now as the Irish times reported recently is "transitional accomodation".

Basically this is "own door accommodation" so you aren't on the homeless stats - but it is only temporary accomodation as by calling it transitional accommodation you get no part 4 rights.

18 Month maximum stay to prevent transitional accomodation gaining too many rights.

In any case the higher rents go up the more someone is likely to become homeless.

I see this week that workers in poverty stars are up to 109 k people so it's a real risk for people at the lower end of the ladder.

Mike3549

Could you please give me a reason, why people who have a roof over their heads for at least another 12 months should be called homeless? All this "homeless" thing is nuts.
Heard on a radio a couple months ago that adult kids who still live with their parents also should be included in those stats.
Whats next? People sharing rooms?

Eric Cartman

Assetbacked wrote: »

Stop having ****ing kids you can't afford.

+1, the amount of stories ive read with 'x, single mother of 2 who has been in emergency accommodation for 10 months and is expecting another child'

NIMAN

Eric Cartman wrote: »

+1, the amount of stories ive read with 'x, single mother of 2 who has been in emergency accommodation for 10 months and is expecting another child'

Unless it was another immaculate conception, it's time the father's started to be held to account in all these homeless children cases.

Eric Cartman

NIMAN wrote: »

Unless it was another immaculate conception, it's time the father's started to be held to account in all these homeless children cases.

Most of the time theyre not on the scene at all, in prison or their presence would hurt the application/ reduce welfare payments so they stay in the shaddows until she has a house and then BOOM theyre suddenly living there off the books.

Eric Cartman

Mike3549 wrote: »

Could you please give me a reason, why people who have a roof over their heads for at least another 12 months should be called homeless? All this "homeless" thing is nuts.
Heard on a radio a couple months ago that adult kids who still live with their parents also should be included in those stats.
Whats next? People sharing rooms?

sure some agencies consider non prtb registered rentals or people living at home paying no rent as homeless due to their 'huge risk of homelessness'

NIMAN

Eric Cartman wrote: »

sure some agencies consider non prtb registered rentals or people living at home paying no rent as homeless due to their 'huge risk of homelessness'

Yeah, I think it's safe to say both sides are fudging the figures.

Spanish Eyes

homeless to me is living on the streets. Shelterless mostly by their own choice since the supports are there if they want them.

I would not give a penny to Focus or any other so called homeless charities because they are funded by our taxes, they have endless supports from us. But still moan. If people choose to live on the street there is not much we can do.

If people game the system by going into hotels/hubs and live day to day with relatives or parents in order to gain a property, not much we can do.

The homeless industry is rife with guilt tripping now.

Eric Cartman

Also a big thing a lot of people forget is that homeless people including rough sleepers are all collecting welfare. Merchants quay and focus Ireland offer them post receiving services and they can use the centres address to apply. The people shaking a cup at you asking for change or passed out in sleeping bags are collecting 188 euro a week.