DCC on course to spend €175m on homeless services this year

Dublin City Council has so far spent over €140,000,000 on homeless services this year.

Revealed at this month’s council meeting, the annual spend to date of €140,379,033 has already nearly matched 2021’s total figure of €148,000,000.

At the current rate of expenditure, the local authority will spend €175,000,000 on homeless services in 2022.

Sinn Fein councillor Daithí Doolan, who asked the council to publish the figures says that the amount of money spent on emergency accommodation and other homeless services is a “shocking reflection on the failure of the current Government’s housing policy.

“Behind spiralling cost of homeless services are thousands of people who have no home to call their own,” he says.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg.

“Many, many more families are hidden homeless – sofa surfing or staying in overcrowded, Dickensian conditions.”

A recent report by National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) found that last year, the number of homeless adults staying in emergency increased in Dublin by 308.

The NOAC reported that 4,366 homeless adults were staying in emergency accommodation in 2021 in comparison to 4,058 in 2020.

Figures also released under the Freedom of Information Act earlier this year show that 357 homeless people have died in Dublin over the past five years.

In 2022, more than 70 homeless deaths have already been recorded in the city.

Doolan says that the Government’s Housing for All policy needs a complete reform.

“It appears that Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has grown to accept that a deepening housing crisis is now a permanent fixture in Dublin.

“This is wrong and it is unacceptable,” he says.

“Tonight’s figures clearly show that Housing for All has been a total failure.

“There must be a radical change in the Government’s housing policy.

“We need this Government to hugely speed up funding, cut red tape and delivery of social and affordable housing in housing.”