Over 500 homeless in Cork for 17th consecutive month

CORK’S homelessness levels are above 500 for the 17th month in a row, according to the latest figures from the Department of Housing.

There were 520 adults in emergency accommodation in Cork in the last week of April, up from 504 the previous month. These figures do not include people sleeping rough or in direct provision.

In the South West region of Cork and Kerry, the figures included 88 families, 64 of which were single-parent families, and 157 children.

Paul Sheehan of Cork Simon said: “it’s an increase of 3% in a month, and our emergency accommodation is full.”

“From our point of view, there’s no change happening, the housing commission report published last week has a really good set of proposals, so we would say that they need to be taken on board as quickly as possible.”

They have no ability to support any more people, he said, explaining “our shelter is full, we are taking in record numbers of people a night, 75 or 76 – that’s as many as we’ve ever housed, and our shelter isn’t the only one in town but the others are all full too.” There is a need for more emergency accommodation, but it’s not a solution, he said, explaining that it should be temporary while they work on a long-term fix.

“After next week, we’ll have a new batch of elected councilors, and the government needs to work very closely with all of them to fix our housing.” Brian McCarthy, a Solidarity-People Before Profit councillor for Cork city North West told The Echo, “this is even more proof that the government’s continued reliance on the private market to deliver housing has been an absolute failure and is having devastating consequences.

“We need to take the profiteering out of housing and the state needs to directly intervene like they did in 50s and 60s to build Gurranabraher, Knocknaheeny and Togher.

Mr McCarthy continued, “now we have a massive budget surplus and urgently need to use this to fund public services like housing, water and healthcare - our infrastructure is crumbling.

“But as long as we have a government that is funded by and representing the interests of millionaires and billionaires, that is never going to happen.” 

'SHOCKING FIGURES'

Paul Gavan, Sinn Fein EU election candidate said, “the figure are shocking, they’re getting worse month after month, even as Fine Gael and Fianna Fail tell us they’re getting better.

“Its clear we need a radical change,” he said, adding that from an EU perspective, there were multiple funds that we could be using to invest in housing.

“In context of Cork city, there’s over 500 vacant council houses in the middle of the biggest housing crisis in the history of the state,” Mr Gavan said.

His party colleague, TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould, said, “the figures are up right across the board, children in emergency accommodation have increased from 151 to 157 and families from 83 to 88.

He said, “since the government came into power in 2022, there has been a 61% increase in homelessness, it’s up 66% for children and 75% for families.

“What the government don’t see is the unseen homelessness, three generations of a family living in one house because people can’t find anywhere to rent, eight people in a three bedroom house – they’re not classed as homeless.

“In the first 3 months of this year, 544 notices to quit were given, those people have a few months to find somewhere else to go too or else they’re also going to be looking for emergency accommodation.”