The government has been accused of prioritising Dublin over the rest of the country when it comes to tackling homelessness.
It comes as two charities, the Simon Community and Threshold, release new figures which show a significant increase in demand for their services in this region.
Clare FM’s Fiona McGerry reports:
165 children in the Midwest are facing into Christmas without a permanent roof over their head, something which Midwest Simon has described as a “terrible indictment of our society”.
The Simon Community has published it’s annual report for 2016 today, which shows that there has been a 33% increase in the numbers availing of its services in the space of a year.
However, with an influx of adults and children into emergency accomodation here this year, the situation has now become even worse again.
Manager Jackie Bonfield fears that areas like Clare have been forgotten about by Governement.
Similarly, Threshold has reported a 34% increase in demand for its services in the Western region with 169 queries from people in Clare.
More than half of those related to tenancy terminations, with the remainder about rent review issues, concerns over deposit retention, the standard or repair of property or help with finding accomodation.
The organisation’s Western Services Manager, Diarmuid O’Sullivan says people who’s tenancies have been terminated are facing huge challenges in sourcing accomodation.
