Local homeless figures spike in 2016

Seamus Enright

The number of homeless cases presenting to the local authority has increased more than five fold over the past four years reaching a peak in 2016, according to the latest figures available.

Last year, Cavan County Council received 105 presentations of homelessness - representing 240 displaced persons including families and children.
The executive has largely rejected any suggestion that some of these cases manifested as homeless to simply skip the queue for social housing. The matter came up for debate at the February meeting of Cavan County Council.
According to council figures, there were just 22 homeless presentations in 2013, accounting for 28 people in total. That figure almost trebled in 2014, to 60 presentations or 115 individuals, rising again in 2015 to 90 cases involving 172 people.
The CEO Tommy Ryan brought a report to the meeting, which showed that some 15% of persons on the current housing list had refused offers of housing.
Fianna Fáil's John Paul Feeley asked what was the cost of managing the problem of homelessness in the county.
Fine Gael's Peter McVitty, meanwhile, asked whether the executive was aware of cases where homelessness was claimed in order to gain an advantage towards receiving priority on the housing list.
Addressing the councillors, Director of Services for Housing, Joe McLoughlin, said that a homeless presentation did not necessarily mean receiving priority in terms of social housing.
'We help to source accommodation and make a range of systems available to them, either through rent supplement or through rent assistance,' he explained.
Mr McLoughlin added that 'very few' out of all presentations to the Council were those 'jumping on the bandwagon' in order to get priority status.
'There is a preception out there that there is a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. There are some, but in our experience it’s not a widespread case.'
However, the director did warn that the high number of presentations showed 'no indication of levelling off', and noted that 'many people are finding it hard to survive in rental accommodation'.
He added that the Department meanwhile are assisting local authorities throughout the country in addressing the cost of dealing with homelessness.