Focus Ireland have stated that in the since spring 2013 the number of families becoming homeless every month in Ireland has risen and is now somewhere in the region of 32 families. Double what the numbers were prior to 2013.
With thousands more families struggling on low incomes and with the figures from the recent CSO study the strong economic drive behind this rise in family homelessness is clearly visible.
Although the Dublin City Council does operate a waiting list system for emergency accommodation a spokesperson from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive have confirmed that they cannot promise families who have been made homeless emergency accommodation.
Figures gathered in late December 2014 show that 331 families in the Dublin area alone are in emergency accommodation, many of them packed into one hotel room per family with no facilities to cook or do laundry, study etc. These 331 families equate to 726 children displaced from a stable home life.
Emergency accommodation in Dublin is operating at capacity with calls from groups such as FOCUS Ireland for the government to invest in social housing and to not allow the homeless families of the country to slip under the radar.
Some families cannot stay together and must split in order to access accommodation with friends or family with reports of some being forced to live and sleep in their cars. The burden and hardships or homelessness not only on the shoulders of parents but with that the pressures of raising a family without a home and with little hope of one in the near future.