A woman and her three children were forced to spend last night (Wednesday) in an industrial estate because the credit card used by Dublin City council to pay for emergency accommodation maxed out.
The woman was told on Tuesday that she would not be housed as the card had reached its limit. She has been in emergency accommodation on and off.
The woman contacted Dublin West Cllr. Jack Chambers, who said the story left him “speechless.”
“This is an extremely disturbing development in Dublin’s spiralling homeless crisis,” Mr Chambers said.
“Homeless families were literally turfed out onto the streets this week because the funds were not there to provide temporary accommodation. The fact that a woman and her young children were forced to sleep rough in an industrial estate last night is a damning indictment of the Government’s attitude to the homelessness crisis,” he added.
“While it may have been a temporary issue on this occasion, even two days of driving homeless families out of safe accommodation and onto the streets is far too long ... unless it is addressed, more and more families will be forced to sleep rough,” he added.
Mr Chambers called on Environment Minister Alan Kelly to take action.
“Where is he while Dublin’s homeless services descend into further chaos? The fact that something as banal as an individual credit card reaching its limit is all it takes for a homeless family to be thrown out on the street ... illustrates just how vulnerable those on the margins have become over the last few years.”
Dublin City Council tonight said: "We continue to expand and implement measures to respond to the housing needs of homeless households, however the significant challenge remains that the level of families presenting to homeless services is not keeping a pace with the number of families that are moving out of homeless services and back into independent living."
There are currently 531 families in emergency accommodation with Dublin City Council – a total of 1122 dependents. In the past year there has been a major increase - in June 2014 there were 264 families and a total of 567 dependents.
