A record number of people were recorded sleeping rough in Dublin on November 7.
Pat Doyle, Chief Executive of the Peter McVerry Trust, has said there will be a bed available for every rough sleeper in Dublin before Christmas.
Speaking to Drivetime on RTÉ Radio One on Wednesday, Doyle revealed that there will be 202 new beds made available to homeless people in Dublin in the next month, although he said that some rough sleepers, who Doyle described as “complex cases”, may decide not to take a bed.
Doyle’s comments come after it was revealed that there were 184 people sleeping rough in Dublin on the night of November 7, the highest figure ever recorded in the capital.
The Department of Housing also revealed on Wednesday that the number of people accessing emergency accommodation in October of this year was 8,492 nationally, a figure comprising of 5,298 adults and 3,194 dependents.
In relation to the new beds being made available between now and Christmas, Doyle said: “What we’re saying now and what the Dublin City Council and the DRHE (Dublin Regional Homeless Executive) are doing, in partnership with the voluntary organisations is, we’re bringing in 202 new beds this side of Christmas.”
Doyle added that while the Housing First model – which provides homeless individuals with their own, separate accommodation – was the most attractive option for some rough sleepers who have had difficult experiences in institutions, he encouraged all rough sleepers to take an offer of a bed, especially with the onset of the cold spell.
“We need to the majority of those 184 (people recorded sleeping rough on November 7) in,” Doyle added.
“The majority will come in; there’ll be some that’ll be complex and we need to work extremely hard to get them in, but the other way of bringing the most complex cases in is through the Housing First model, where you offer people on the street their own apartment immediately because some people have had very difficult experiences in institutions and they won’t go in.”
You can listen back to Doyle’s interview on Drivetime on RTÉ Radio 1 here.
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