The CEO of the North West Simon Community, Noel Daly, says that the upcoming Budget 2024 must plan to end homelessness by the end of the decade.
Noel Daly made the plea to Government, after another month of record homelessness figures were recorded during the week, with a total of 12,691 people accessing emergency accomodation in the month of August.
166 people were in emergency accomodation in the North West in that period, including 44 children.
Figures from the North West Simon Community also state that homelessness figures in the region are up 93% from when the Government announced its “Housing for All” plan in September of 2021, just two years ago.
Daly has also re-emphasised that these Government figures also don’t paint the whole picture:
“Monthly Homeless Reports published by the Government relate only to individuals and families provided with emergency accommodation by the Local Authorities. They do not include households frequently described as the ‘hidden homeless’. People and families sleeping rough, living in cars and tents, sofa surfing, escaping domestic violence in refuges, sharing with parents, family, and friends, and/or living in houses unfit for habitation, and those who did not apply or were refused emergency accommodation. Regardless of any reservations we may have about how homelessness is measured the statistics point clearly to a major crisis”.
Noel Daly has called on the Government to “…demonstrate that the Government is clearly prioritising the objective of ending homelessness by 2030” that was promised in the Housing for All plan two years ago, by delivering “significant investment in measures to achieve the prevention of homelessness through increased funding to ensure support services are maintained and enhanced and that the State quickly moves to ensure a minimum of 15,000 social are built homes each year until the crisis is finally ended.”
