Cork City Council backs new homelessness plan

Cork city councillors have voted to approve the South-West Regional Homelessness Action Plan 2025-2028, developed through a consultative process involving local authorities, government departments, healthcare services, and homeless service providers.

Expenditure on homelessness rose to nearly €35m in the South West in 2024, a significant increase from under €20m prior to the pandemic, the action plan states.

The plan sets out aims for the region to achieve by the end of 2028, such as to ensure all identified entrenched rough sleepers and long-term homeless individuals with complex needs are offered housing, to increase exits to tenancies for families with children living in emergency accommodation, and achieve a significant reduction in the number of individuals and families in emergency accommodation for longer than 12 months.

The plan also aims to work on providing improved services for rough sleepers and users of daytime homeless services.

The document, agreed unanimously at Monday’s Cork City Council meeting, sets out 57 actions for the local authority, under the topics prevention, protection, progression, and governance.

These goals identify a focus on preventing homelessness for several target groups including people who are fleeing domestic violence, senior citizens, young people leaving care, people being discharged from hospital, prison, psychiatric units, or rehabilitation centres.

The plan highlights the “continuous presenting scale of family homelessness”, and suggests local authorities work to place families in private emergency accommodation or family hubs, and only use commercial hotels when no other accommodation is available in the region, as well as provide early intervention supports for children in emergency accommodation, including supports to access or maintain childcare and school placements.

The goals also include improving access to mental health and disability services for people experiencing homelessness, and developing a LGBT+ strategy including an examination on the establishment of specific LGBT+ accommodation.

It comes as Cork City Council was forced to close its tenant-in-situ programme for 2025 after government funding was not sufficient to cover expenses carried over from 2024.

Sinn Féin councillor Michelle Gould also had a motion unanimously approved at Monday’s meeting calling for the council to “open a temporary facility for those sleeping rough to access basic needs — somewhere to eat, charge phones and shower — over the winter period”.