COPE Galway fear that the west will experience a growth in homelessness this coming winter.
The local organisation was commenting on the most recent figures published by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for July 2021 which show an increase in homelessness in the West.
There were 280 adults and 154 children living in emergency accommodation, up from 258 and 165 in June across the three counties, Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. The numbers of families reported as homeless in the region stood at 66 in July 2021, up from 46 in January 2021.
“The acute shortage of affordable rental accommodation and the ending of the temporary moratorium on evictions earlier this year are the two main contributing factors to the persistently high numbers living in emergency accommodation, numbers which are slowly increasing at a local level here in Galway,” said Martin O’Connor, COPE Galway’s Assistant CEO.
“Despite a lot of ongoing hard work and effort to meet the housing needs of people who are homeless, this situation is frustrating for everyone as, at best, we appear to be only standing still.”
COPE Galway says that the Government’s ‘Housing for All strategy’, due for publication this week, must provide for and prioritise sufficient levels of new additional social housing units to tackle the current social housing waiting lists and introduce measures to prevent homelessness. ‘
“We saw what was possible in respect of measures taken to prevent people falling into homelessness over the course of 2020 and into the earlier part of this year with the moratorium on evictions related to the pandemic. We need to see more of this type of initiative taken – if adequate measures and resources aren’t taken, more people will fall through the gaps,” says Mr. O’Connor, “and these official figures don’t reflect those who are sleeping rough in our city.”
