Homelessness: What does the data tell us about the crisis?

RTÉ News​

3 days ago

On Friday, the Department of Housing published the latest of its monthly updates on homelessness. It showed that in June almost 16,000 people, including almost 5,000 children, were relying on emergency State shelter.
Each of those counted is an adult or child living in a space that no-one wants to call home. But what does the data around homelessness tell us about why people end up in need of emergency accommodation, or where potential solutions may lie?
We've come a long way since 2014 when the department first started publishing monthly figures, but it has been in the wrong direction. More than a decade on, the latest monthly homelessness figures are more than quadruple the first update.
The earliest reports for December 2014 showed 3,738 adults and children in emergency homeless accommodation. The new figures of 15,915 are a record high.
Unfortunately record highs are nothing new. It's the sixth record in six months, the twentieth in twenty-one months.
Over a decade in 'crisis' mode
Back in 2014, 3,738 adults and children in emergency homeless accommodation was certainly considered too many. There was much discussion at the time about our 'homelessness crisis' amid particular concern about the increase in the numbers of families presenting as homeless.
In May of that year the then Minister for Housing Jan O'Sullivan unveiled a plan to eliminate homelessness by 2016. It promised "a housing-led approach ... accessing permanent housing as the primary response to all forms of homelessness".
Exactly two years after that report's publication, the homelessness figure had climbed to 6,170. A pre-Covid record was hit in October 2019, when the number of homeless people living in emergency accommodation reached 10,514.
The pandemic saw the introduction of a number of eviction bans between March 2020 and April 2021. In that period overall homelessness fell by almost a quarter from that October 2019 peak to 7,991 in May 2021.
And after the pandemic protections were lifted, homelessness levels started rising steadily again, and have almost doubled since that relative low in May 2021.
We are now back to a situation where emergency measures have been removed from the system, yet the homelessness numbers continue to trend upwards. So, what is underpinning that trend?
New entries versus exits
There are two key drivers of homelessness: the number of new presentations, the number of people leaving accommodation.
Around three in every five people in homelessness now are part of families, so when the number of families entering homelessness falls and those leaving the system increases, this has a big impact on the overall figures.
This is exactly what happened during the pandemic, when more families left the system than entered it, bringing about a dip in overall homeless figures.
Seven in ten of our homeless people live in the Dublin region, so the data on family homelessness from there provides key insights. It shows how trends in family homelessness have shifted in recent years, and how that has been impacting the overall picture.
In 2018, on average each month 93 new families presented as homeless in Dublin – shown in the green columns in the graph here. The number of new presentations has not been as high as that since. It fell in 2020, likely helped by pandemic related rent freezes and eviction bans.
At the same time the average number of families leaving homeless accommodation each month – shown in yellow - shot up, both in 2019 and in 2020.
In 2020 that figure reached a monthly average of 102, not quite double the figure for new families presenting (58), but not too far off.
One of the reasons proffered by Focus Ireland in its analysis of why this happened was that the collapse of the tourism sector led some property owners to pivot from short term to long term lets.
But none of that was to last.
As soon as the pandemic protections were lifted, the numbers of families exiting homelessness started to fall, from 88 in April to just 24 in October 2021.
This downward trend continued in 2022.
As the number of families leaving the system declined in those two years, the monthly average number of new families presenting as homeless in Dublin remained steady and even began to climb.
For 2022 and 2023, the ratio was stuck at almost 1:2, for every one family leaving emergency homeless accommodation, two new families would arrive.
Throughout 2023 and into 2024, Dublin Region Homeless Executive repeatedly stated that the drop in "families exiting homeless accommodation to tenancies (was) the main driver of the increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in the Dublin region".
Last year saw some improvement in the number of families able to move out, but there were still more new arrivals than exits. So far this year, the gap between the two has been widening once again.
The number of exits stalling means families are experiencing longer stays in emergency homeless accommodation.
Back in March 2022 more than half (51%) of homeless families left emergency accommodation within six months of their arrival. By March this year that had fallen to just over a third (36%).
At the same time the number of families spending two years or more in emergency accommodation climbed almost 134% from 192 to 449.
When we speak about homelessness, fears for lost childhoods and the stress and distress caused by parenting in such conditions result in focus firmly being placed on family homelessness.
However, single adults and those in childless couples make up two thirds of the adults in homeless accommodation, and around 2 in 5 of the total homeless population here.
While overall homelessness figures fell during 2020 and into 2021 – corresponding with the fall in families - the number of people in these categories remained stubbornly static, hovering between 4,400 and 4,590 for almost a year and a half.
Some people working in the sector argue the State needs to look at different strategies to tackle these two different cohorts, because what impacts one may not impact the other.
They note that families and single adults (or adult couples) tend to have differing routes into homelessness.
More families than single adults become homeless because the property they have been renting is going to be sold or similar by their landlord – in other words they have been given an eviction notice, or what is called in the data a 'Notice of Termination'.
In Dublin last year, 2 in 5 newly homeless families gave this as the reason for their homelessness, but only one in ten single adults did.
The other main reason is relationship breakdown. Together, the two have accounted for 60% of all new family presentations since May 2022.
Other factors like overcrowding, domestic violence, newly arriving into the country and family reunifications all feature regularly as reasons too, but they drive fewer families into homelessness.
For single people, the path into homelessness is not as clearly defined and it has also changed a lot in recent years.
At the end of 2022 and in 2023, the biggest driver of single adult homelessness was a breakdown of a relationship, accounting for 1 in 4 new presentations in 2023.
This dropped to 18% in 2024 and 16% this year to date.
The main reason currently driving adult-only homelessness is people leaving direct provision.
It has gone from accounting for less than 3% of new presentations at the end of 2022, to around 10% in mid-2023 to 26% the following year, and to 27% to date this year.
In 2023, people who had International Protection status for two years but were still living in direct provision accommodation began to be moved elsewhere. They were typically moved to emergency International Protection accommodation which was often in different parts of the country. For adults, that accommodation could include tents.
There is a clear link in the data between an uptick in these transfers and the increase in people who had lived in direct provision accommodation presenting as homeless. However, it's worth noting people are not being moved directly into local authority emergency homeless accommodation from direct provision.
Last month, DRHE Director Mary Hayes told an Oireachtas Committee on Housing that she was "concerned" about the process, describing it as the "institutional discharge from one institution into another".
"That does not seem to be well-thought through or a planned approach to homelessness," Ms Hayes said.
Newly arriving from abroad, leaving overcrowded accommodation, having insufficient funds, rough sleeping and leaving hospital or treatment, were also regularly cited, accounting for between 3% and 6% of all cases.
A raft of other reasons are given by people too, from release from prison, ageing out of childcare services, to leaving informal housing arrangements.
When addressing such a myriad of reasons for single adult homeless, it is safe to say that a one-size-fits-all solution is not going to work.
Solutions and stumbling blocks
Housing First was one way of addressing the complex issue of long-term adult homelessness and rough sleeping.
The idea is to provide secure accommodation with specialised support services.
It exceeded a first set of targets of supporting 650 people between 2018 and 2022.
The next target was 1,319 more tenancies by the end of 2026.
By the end of last month 899 of those had been delivered, but rates have been falling, and in Dublin they've effectively stalled, with just 3 tenancies created in the 3 months to June, and 16 created in the previous 3 months.
The reason for this is because the service, which was provided by the Peter McVerry Trust, is currently out to tender.
But it's been out to tender since this time last year, and as a result referrals have been paused.
A dearth of one bed and studio apartments in the private rental markets has also been pointed to as a factor blocking exits of homeless single adults and couples from emergency accommodation.
The Department of Housing is hoping to boost the supply of such apartments by attempting to entice developers to build them.
That's one of the reasons it gave earlier this month for cutting the minimum size of studio apartments to the equivalent of one eighth of a tennis court.
Perhaps more of these apartments will increase the options available to homeless single adults, if they can afford them when they come on the market, but this is at best a medium- to long-term solution.
Families too face a shortage of exit options, bringing us back to the almost 5,000 children currently hoping for a home outside of the emergency accommodation they are now living in.
The latest Locked Out of the Market survey by the Simon Communities of Ireland showed that there were 13% fewer properties available to rent in June than even in March of this year, regardless of how they are priced.
There are fewer still that qualify for the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), a social housing support to help people who qualify, to rent private accommodation, on the basis that they can find it below a certain price point.
However, the number of places available within HAP price limits stood at just 32 nationwide, down 22% on the previous survey.
While local authorities have some discretion on these limits and there is a boosted Homeless HAP rate, it seems clear that the supply simply isn't there to meet the demand.
Despite some gaps in the data, it is clear to see from DRHE reports from 2020 and 2021 that the majority of exits from emergency accommodation in Dublin in those years were into HAP tenancies.
This flipped in 2022 as the supply of rental housing available within HAP limits declined, and the number of overall exits fell too.
In November that year DRHE said the drop in families exiting homelessness was "concerning" with just six families exiting homelessness via HAP into private rented accommodation the month before, the lowest in at least five years.
Another potential route out of homelessness is into social housing.
In 2022, two thirds of adults who moved out of emergency accommodation went into social housing - in the form of local authority lettings combined with Assisted Housing Body (AHB) lettings.
That increased to three in every four adults last year, and that's still the case this year.
But while the supply of such housing is increasing, it has not increased enough to reduce the number of people in homeless accommodation.
Despite local authorities having targets for the number of social homes they need to build, many have missed them - Dublin City and Fingal County Council among them.
Those local authorities are able to assist people leaving homelessness, but also prevent people entering the system. Key to that in recent years has been the Tenant in-Situ scheme, which was launched in early 2023.
It enabled local authorities or the State's Housing Agency to buy properties where landlords were selling up and the tenant was in place.
The scheme was widely praised for being an effective tool, and the stats bore this out.
Before its introduction, data showed 779 people were prevented from entering homelessness in the first three months of 2023.
That rose to 1,334 for the same period the following year, with the Tenant in-Situ Scheme accounting for 30% of those.
Yet 2025 has seen that trend change.
In the first quarter of this year Tenant in-Situ acquisitions have fallen 56% from where they were during the same period last year, and that was before Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council suspended the scheme saying their budgets had been exhausted.
By this time last year, the Tenant in Situ-Scheme had prevented 742 adults from entering homelessness. That's down 60% this year to 292.
Overall documented preventions fell in the first six months of this year too, down from 2,610 to 1,868.
The plan is: there will be another plan
The last promise to "prevent and reduce" homelessness came in 2021's 'Housing for All'.
It gave a deadline of 2030, in line with an EU-wide commitment. A new plan is rumoured to be in development, so we'll have to wait and see what new promises, ideas, and deadlines it might bring.
There is no silver bullet to solving a complex problem like homelessness. What is frustrating some working in the area is that some measures that were meeting a need have run out of money or out of steam.
A new no fault eviction ban is set to come into place for large landlords along with new restrictions for smaller landlords. They're part of the new suite of renting rules, linked to the extension of rent pressure zones across the country.
We have to wait until the end of February next year for those measures to kick in.
There will be seven more monthly homelessness reports by then, and there's little to suggest the figures will go anywhere but up.