Homeless charity moved 900 people back into community from temporary accommodation

Vivienne Clarke

The CEO of the charity Depaul has spoken of the importance of early intervention in helping people avoid entering homelessness.

Speaking in advance of the public of the Depaul 2025 Impact Report, David Carroll told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that in the midst of a housing crisis, Depaul had managed to move 900 people back into the community from temporary accommodation.

People were under incredible pressure from a cost-of-living point of view, he added.

“We've seen the figures rise really since 2018-2019 to a situation now where we have 17,500 people in temporary accommodation, and what we want to make sure on the back of the publication of this report is that we don't accept those figures as the new normal.

“We now have to put in specific interventions and emergency interventions in order to be able to tackle this issue and make sure that we don't accept the figures that we have at the moment.”

Early intervention, he explained, would mean working with people within communities before they enter temporary accommodation.

“We can find the signals of deteriorating tendencies on the back of maybe rental issues, antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol difficulties and supporting people within community settings is really important.

“The Housing First programme that we deliver now in Dublin is a prime example of where that can occur where complex people with complex needs, drug and alcohol needs are supported intensively in order to be able to support themselves and put roots in their communities.”

DePaul will be providing up to 420 tenancy supports for Housing First by the end of 2029, which is really good news for us.

Carroll said the forthcoming budget needed to contain a concrete plan on how to exit from the reliance on temporary accommodation.

“That means setting key targets with regards to particularly the amount of children that we want to get out of homelessness. The other big piece for us is around mental health.

“We're seeing an emergency, a mental health crisis with people in temporary accommodation. We need an increase in the amount of HSE funding that's going to support people with mental health challenges both within the community but also within temporary accommodation as well.”
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