139 people sleeping rough in Dublin, DRHE announces

There are 139 people sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) has announced.

However, DRHE says the count was carried out over a course of a week and is not comparable with last year’s winter count, which found 92 people sleeping rough.

In a statement, the homelessness authority says that due to the ongoing pandemic, it was not possible to conduct the count over one evening with 150 volunteers, so it was carried out over a seven-day period.

The DRHE says that 20% of the rough sleepers had emergency accommodation allocated to them on at least one of the nights they were on the streets.

Overall, 89% of the rough sleepers accounted for had been in emergency accommodation within the past week, while one was in long-term accommodation and another in HAP.

Five of the people have since been placed in permanent Housing First accommodation.

The count found that most rough sleepers are male, Irish and aged between 25 and 44.

The authority says it is considering moving to a seven-day count in future as the numbers sleeping out vary from night to night.

It said: “While there is a core group of people who may regularly sleep rough, and may or may not engage with services, there is a larger group of people that may move between rough sleeping, using emergency accommodation on a more regular basis, sleeping in insecure accommodation, and or staying with family or friends.

“Others may only engage in rough sleeping for a very short transitional period.”

The DRHE says it found 45 people sleeping rough in the city centre area on a count which occurred on November 25.