There’s been a decrease in homelessness in December of last year with 335 fewer people.
The total homeless now stands at 14,864.
In Wexford, there are 50 adults and 96 children in emergency accommodation.
While this may seem small in the context of national figures, Focus Ireland are stressing that no one should be homeless.
They are urging the new housing Minister, Wexford’s James Browne to prioritise building 55,000 homes annually, including 15,000 social homes, to reduce homelessness.
Speaking on south East Radio was Conor Culkin Communications officer with Focus Ireland who said the cost of homelessness to the state is in the millions: “The way to address homelessness long term is housing. A person has a right to a home and they have the right to wraparound supports and then they can contribute to society. Another thing to remember is the cost of homelessness to the state – you’re talking in the millions. One of our calls is we want to ensure that there is nobody homeless for longer than six months by the end of 2030 because what happens when you go over six months when you’re long term homeless particularly when you’re a child you will develop often what you would call toxic stress so this is kind of stress that you will
have later on in your life so to tackle this is really important because I think we can all agree over 4500 children in emergency accommodation homeless it’s simply not acceptable”
