There's been a 60% rise in the number of people seeking the Simon Communities help over the last two years.
The charity has released its annual report – noting that it supported 13,304, men women and children between 2015 and 2017.
It said record numbers of people have been using its services this year, with more people handed support in the first six months of 2018 than in the entirety of 2017.
The charity helped over 3,000 families between January and June this year – a rise of over 1,000 on the whole of 2017.
It comes as nearly 10,000 people face Christmas in emergency accommodation this year.
‘2018 looks like being a record year for people turning to our services and that’s not what we want to see.’ @NiamhRandall
— Simon Communities (@SimonCommunity) December 11, 2018
Government policy
Simon Community spokesperson Niamh Randall said there are solutions to the homeless crisis – provided the Government changes its policy.
“It is about making the correct political decisions,” she said.
“We just never musty accept that homelessness is normal; we should never accept that living with such fear and uncertainty and trauma and difficulty is normal.
“We need the Government to recognise that the private sector cannot deliver the number of homes that are needed.
“We need the focus on social and affordable housing that need to be delivered by the State in conjunction with local authorities but also by housing associations.”
She also called for an increased focus on preventing families from falling onto homelessness.
“If we can keep people in the homes they it make such a difference in terms of the cost to the Exchequer – never mind the human trauma,” she said.
‘We try to be as responsive as possible to the crisis and to international evidence as to what works best. We’ve increased our prevention services and are working with the Housing First model.’ @NiamhRandall
— Simon Communities (@SimonCommunity) December 11, 2018
Homeless crisis
The annual report notes that The Simon Communities worked with 3,140 families - including 3,255 children – between January and June 2018.
It helped a total of 2,006 families – with 3,799 children – in 2017.
Meanwhile, 1,218 people accessed the charity’s emergency accommodation services between January and June – compared to just 968 people in 2017.
The latest Government figures show there were 9,724 people in emergency accommodation last month – however the actual figure may be much higher as many more have ‘re-categorised’ out of the official count this year.
