'We've witnessed a huge drop in the number of move-ons': People becoming 'stuck' in homelessness

Some people are becoming 'stuck' in homelessness because they cannot move out of services, with Depaul also revealing that 15 babies were born into its services last year.

'We've witnessed a huge drop in the number of move-ons': People becoming 'stuck' in homelessness

Some people are becoming 'stuck' in homelessness because they cannot move out of services, with Depaul also revealing that 15 babies were born into its services last year.

The charity's annual report said it helped 4,333 people across 28 different services last year, but that "the lack of housing options in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland has prolonged people’s experience of homelessness".

On a day when new figures showed 10,338 people in emergency accommodation in August, Depaul said: "In 2018 we witnessed a huge drop in the number of move-ons for Depaul service users.

"This drop was felt across both jurisdictions and represented an 18% decrease from the previous year. The lack of housing builds and housing options, coupled with ever-increasing rental prices has severely hindered people’s ability to move on once they were ready."

Last year Depaul - which operates north and south and works primarily with single people - saw a 13% increase in the number of children it helped, rising from 779 in 2017 to 881 in 2018. In total it helped 513 families.

It served 330,000 hot meals while also assisting members of the homeless population in other ways, such as helping to address their health needs.

According to the report, which is published today, it said last year there was "a sharp rise" in the need to administer Naloxone, which reverses drug overdoses. "Depaul staff administered this life-saving antidote 60 times," according to the report. The number of suspected overdoses stood at 127, an 81% increase on the figure in 2017.

By the end of last year, the Depaul Housing Association was an Approved Housing Body and the charity said it would continue to advocate for stronger tenancy rights.

Depaul CEO David Carroll said:

It is incredibly frustrating when you have helped people to a point where they are ready to live independently only to find they have nowhere to go. The lack of housing supply is stymieing people’s ability to move on from homelessness. It is disheartening for everybody involved, particularly when our aim is to end homelessness and see people living back in their communities.

Meanwhile, Orla Hegarty, assistant professor of architecture at UCD, has warned that Ireland is "paying a price" in the Government's temporary measures to tackle the housing crisis

At the Simon Communities of Ireland conference in Dublin, the architect and lecturer said State polices are not sustainable and are costing people's mental and physical health. She also said that the number of new-builds is "barely replacing" the current stock.

Vasileios Madouros, director of financial stability at the Central Bank of Ireland, said that the effects of the global bust are still being felt today.

Defending Central Bank of Ireland's mortgage lending rules, Mr Madouros said that its guidelines have "safeguarded financial stability" as well as "strengthening the resilience" of lenders and borrowers.

He said that part of the solution to the housing crisis is sustainable level of supply, and not higher levels of debt.

Additional reporting by Cate McCurry

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