A one third reduction in the amount of homeless families in the Mid-West has been recorded.
Latest figures provided by Mid-West Simon revealed an 18 percent reduction in homelessness across the region while the amount of homeless families has also fallen by one third for the month of May.
389 people accessed emergency accommodation in the Mid-West across the month of May, down on the 474 recorded a month previous. 55 families in the region accessed emergency accommodation in the same period representing a drop of 33 percent.
CEO of Mid-West Simon, Jackie Bonfield has challenged newly appointed Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien (FF) to tackle the underlying issues driving the crisis of homelessness in Ireland.
“There can be no going back to the circumstances that have driven the current homelessness crisis, no going back to overcrowded emergency accommodation, no going back to using hotels to shelter families, no going back to indiscriminate evictions, no going back to shortages of one-bedroom accommodation and no going back to short-term leases,” she stated.
Jackie added, “We need to see a creative and proactive approach from this Government that will turn the housing crisis around and make homelessness an exception rather than the norm. Otherwise the coming economic storm will deliver a crisis of unimaginable proportions on our streets and create a generation of interrupted lives”.
