There was another rise in national homeless figures in August, according to the most recent data released by the Department of Housing today. In August, there were 14,486 people recorded as living in temporary and emergency homeless accommodation in the state; 10,067 adults and 4,419 children. This was an increase of 57 people from the previous month.

Except for January, figures have risen every month this year and across a 12-month period, homelessness has risen by 14%. Young adults aged 18-24 years presenting to homeless services rose by 2.5%. These figures do not include households who experienced hidden homelessness; those who are rough sleeping, sofa surfing, those involuntary sharing with multiple generation and people who live in substandard accommodation. Nor does it include people living in domestic violence shelters or migrants seeking international protection.

Una Burns, Head of Advocacy and Communications expressed ‘grave concern’ in relation to the new figures and noted that ‘their publication come in the backdrop of the 2025 Budget next week, which must reflect the reality on the ground of more and more households experiencing homelessness.’ She called on government to ‘prioritise prevention measures including the scaling of the current tenant-in-situ scheme and a revision of existing housing targets that reflect our new reality.’ Tacking the homeless crisis with purpose and urgency must be the top priority for Budget 2025. ‘Greater focus on prevention, accelerated supply of social and affordable housing and ringfenced housing for people who spend protracted periods of time in homeless accommodation must all be part of the multi-strand, multi-departmental and multi-agency approach to tackling the spiralling crisis. Homelessness is solvable and this Budget must reflect the government’s commitment to ending homelessness by 2030.’

There are now more than 4,500 children homeless in Ireland. Not only is the number still rising but families are also homeless for longer, with many spending years in emergency accommodation. This increases the harm and trauma that homelessness can cause.

NOVAS is working hard to house more families as quickly as possible, but due to the housing crisis and lack of housing available, this has become increasingly difficult.

What makes this situation worse is that emergency accommodation for families generally doesn’t have cooking facilities, with families often relying on take-away food for weeks and months and even years on end. It is eaten on laps, sitting on beds, in one room and has a negative impact on children’s physical and mental health.

Families in this situation can feel hopeless. But there is something you can do to help. You can give hope with a donation to NOVAS. In this way, you can help provide a wide range of supports for families including preventive services for families at risk of becoming homeless, housing support, intensive family support services as well as counselling and addiction services for the most vulnerable people in your community.

To give hope and provide this support for a family today, visit www.novas.ie/donate to make a donation. Together we can make a difference.

It is in the backdrop of unprecedented and growing homeless numbers that Budget 2025 will be announced. Considering this, NOVAS calls for urgent, innovative and coordinated action to prevent and end homelessness among tens of thousands of households across the state.
NOVAS’ 2025 Pre-Budget Submission urges government to increase funding for prevention services, increase housing supply, particularly for one-bed units of accommodation and maintain standards within existing homeless accommodation so that services can engage and support people with the most complex needs.

It is essential that housing targets are revised upwardly to reflect current demand, the existing housing deficit and the projected population growth into the future. The 8,000+ social housing output last year must be doubled if we are to grow social, affordable and cost rental stock to meet existing and future demand.

A simultaneous approach of increasing the supply of social and affordable housing, while also investing in prevention support and services is essential. This approach will create sustainable pathways from homelessness while also reducing the number of households becoming homeless to begin with.

NOVAS’ full Pre-Budget Submission can be read here.

On Friday 10^th of May, NOVAS won the Best Patient Lifestyle Award at the National Healthcare Centre Awards in Dublin. Within a very competitive category of clinical programmes, the Limerick-based national homeless charity’s TOPPLE programme emerged victorious.

TOPPLE is a Peer Overdose Prevention Programme, supporting homeless people to prevent and respond to overdose. A programme developed in McGarry House homeless service in Limerick City in 2015, it has provided clients with skills in first aid, communicating with emergency responders and supporting people to reduce their drug use and their risk of overdose. It is a six week programme delivered between trained staff and clients living in the service. In the intervening years, hundreds of clients have participated in the programme and late last year it was adopted by the HSE Social Inclusion office, as a national overdose prevention programme.

Una Burns, Head of Advocacy and Communications with NOVAS was ‘delighted that the award recognised the effectiveness of the programme, which inherently recognises the strengths of our clients and the value of their lived-experience. Without client participation, there would be no TOPPLE. This award is dedicated to all our clients who have been involved in TOPPLE from the beginning and have informed its development through the years.’ She described the importance of assuming ‘a strengths-based, trauma informed approach to support people who experience homelessness, addiction and social marginalisation and harnessing their expertise to create pathways for recovery’.

The awards was accepted on the night by Julie McKenna, NOVAS’ National Health and Recovery Manager and Maria O Shaughnessy, a TOPPLE trainer within NOVAS’ Health and Recovery team.

There was another significant rise in national homeless figures in February, according to the most recent data released by the Department of Housing this week. In February, there were 13,341 people recorded as living in temporary and emergency homeless accommodation in the state; 9,671 adults and 4,170 children. This was an increase of 310 people from the previous month.

In Limerick and the wider Mid-West region, there were significant increases in homeless figures across the 30 day period. There was an increase of 31 adults (8.6%) accessing homeless accommodation in Limerick in February. There was an even starker rise in the number of children living in homeless services in Limerick and Clare, increasing by 24% during the same period – a rise of 10 additional families with 32 children.

Una Burns, Head of Advocacy and Communications expressed ‘grave concern’ in relation to the new figures and noted that ‘except for December, when there is traditionally a drop in homeless numbers, there has been increases every month over the last year, with more people continuing to experience the trauma of homelessness.’ Referring to the Mid-West specifically, Burns said that ‘the region has been reporting static figures for a number of months, which was positive compared to national trends, but the figures emerging this month are deeply concerning with more single adults and more families experiencing homeless in the region than ever before.’ She went on to say that ‘we must remember that these figures only refer to people living in emergency accommodation funded by the state and do not consider the thousands of people who experience hidden homelessness everyday; those sofa surfing, living in squats, living is desperately overcrowded accommodation and involuntary sharing with multi generations of their extended family’.

Tacking the homeless crisis with purpose and urgency must be the top priority for the incoming Taoiseach, Simon Harris, says Burns. ‘Greater focus on prevention, acceralted supply of social and affoardable housing and ringfencing housing for people who spend protratcted periods of time is homeless accommodation must all be part of the multi-strand, multi-departmental and multi-agency approach to tackling the spiraling crisis.’

My name is Darragh Costello. I became homeless a couple of years ago. My life went downhill and I was depressed because I was staying on a friend’s sofa. I felt in the way so I turned to drugs to numb the pain I was in. That year was very hard. I was miserable and felt every other negative emotion you can think of. One day I rang the homeless Freephone and they got me a hostel in the city centre. I stayed there for two weeks with four others in the room. That wasn’t a nice experience. It was difficult to share a room with people in active addiction, smoking heroin and crack. It was hard as my drug of choice was benzos. The two weeks I spent there made me even more depressed.

One day I got a phone call from a woman named Sharon Doyle from NOVAS. She asked me if I wanted to view a room in a house in Whitestown. I immediately asked when could I move in. I moved in straight away, towards the end of the year. I knew it was a nice place to live and it was in Blanchardstown, where I’m from. At the start I was shy but after two weeks I felt at home. Staff treated me like a human being. I had lost my self-worth until I moved into NOVAS’ Whitestown. All the staff were really nice; they would go out of their way to
help me. At Christmas time they even got me presents, which was one of the nicest gestures that happened to me in a very long time.
I started to believe in human decency again. Not all services are nice and staff don’t treat you as well. After a while at Whitestown, I started to become independent again, getting back into cooking, cleaning and cutting the grass.

It helped me to get my self-worth back. I moved out of Whitestown a couple of months ago. I had lived there for eight months. In them eight months the staff helped me get back on my feet. I moved into my own apartment which is really nice. I wouldn’t have got it if it wasn’t for the staff there and they still check in on me to see how I am getting on. If NOVAS didn’t come into my life, I wouldn’t know where I would be today and I will be forever grateful for that.