Concern following significant increase in child homelessness in Cork and Kerry 

There has been a significant increase in child homelessness in the South West region, which encompasses Cork and Kerry.

The latest homelessness figures from the Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage show that there were 184 dependent children accessing emergency accommodation in June in the region.

This latest figure is up 21 from the May figure.

The increase has also been reflected in the number of people attending Penny Dinners in Cork City, particularly as children are home from school where they would get hot meals.

This is according to the director of the Little Hanover St-based charity, Caitríona Twomey.

The latest figures also show a rise in the number of adults accessing emergency accommodation in Cork.

Paul Sheehan, the director of Cork Simon, told The Echo that the increase in overall homelessness in the region came against the backdrop of advances in preventing families entering homelessness and, but for this progress, the figures for families in homelessness in June would have been a great deal more harrowing.

According to the homelessness figures for June, which were issued by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, there are 546 adults accessing emergency accommodation in the Cork City Council and Cork County Council areas.

A further 48 adults are accessing emergency accommodation in the Kerry region.

It was also disclosed in the Department of Housing’s report that 101 families in the South West had accessed emergency accommodation last month.

This included 136 adults and 184 children.

The figures for May in the South West were 94 families accessing emergency accommodation, a figure which included 126 adults and 163 children.

“It’s gone up across the board,” said Mr Sheehan.

“You have to wonder when it will end.”

Some positives 

“There are some positives in the figures — I was looking at the report for the number of households exiting homelessness and the number prevented from entering homelessness, and they are encouraging,” Mr Sheehan said.

“We don’t have a breakdown by region but, according to the department, we had 630 households exiting homelessness in the second three months of this year, and we had another 988 households prevented from entering homeless in the same period, and both of those are a significant increase on the same three months in 2023.”

Mr Sheehan said while these figures were encouraging, taken against the backdrop of increasing numbers of people accessing emergency accommodation according to the June 2024 figures, they indicate that the tide of homelessness is rising at an even faster rate.

“That’s telling us that the measures that are in place are having a positive impact. That being said, the number of families that entered homelessness in June was an actual increase in 12 months, there are more households entering homelessness than are exiting homelessness.

“If the preventative measures that are in place weren’t there and weren’t working, we’d have significantly higher numbers of people in emergency accommodation.”

Mr Sheehan said that the ‘tenant in-situ’ scheme, whereby local authorities would try to purchase the house of a tenant served with a termination notice, had been particularly effective and said measures — such as an extension to termination notices — should be included in the forthcoming budget, as well as the enactment of a homelessness bill.

Increase in families accessing Penny Dinners 

The increase in the number of homeless families, coupled with children being off school for summer, has led to a noticeable increase in families accessing Penny Dinners, according to Ms Twomey.

“We would have [seen more children], because they’re off school as well you see,” she said. “When the kids go to school, a lot of the schools would be Deis schools and they would provide lunches for them. However, during the summer, that’s fairly difficult.

“The families would come, there could be two children, three children so that’s four or five dinners — depending on how many is in the house.”

Cork North Central Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould said that the experience for children who had returned home after their last day in school in June, and who would return to a hotel when they finished school when it reopened, would “have a shadow cast on them for the rest of their lives”.

“Every single month, we see more and more children traumatised by these figures,” he said.

“Homeless adult figures in Cork also rose by 11 in the last month. For these adults, the toll on their mental health, their ability to work, and to live a normal life must never be underestimated.”