Homeless authorities have been accused of managing homelessness rather than solving it following new figures which show the numbers accessing homeless services in Dublin increased by 4 per cent over the past three years.
Much greater progress was recorded in the numbers sleeping rough which fell from 185 to 110 between March 2005 and March 2008, a 40 per cent decrease.
However, the number of people accessing homeless services has risen to 2,366 - a 4 per cent increase - over the past three years, new figures show.
The numbers were produced by the Homeless Agency Partnership, which is responsible for planning and administering funding for homeless services. It says it is confident its vision of ending long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough will be achieved by 2010.
However, homeless agencies on the ground say the recession and increasing pressure on public finances will pose major challenges in making further progress over the coming years. Cathal Morgan, director of the Homeless Agency, said major progress could be achieved by redirecting existing resources towards long-term housing provision.
"We need to move people out of temporary accommodation into long-term housing with supports if required. It has always been the focus of our 10 year-vision and there has never been a better opportunity for this to start to happen than now," he said.
"What is required is a rapid refocusing of resource allocation on long-term solutions, which should be in support of the overall objective of realising the 2010 Vision to eliminate long-term homelessness and the need for people to sleep rough," he said.
He said this year a total of more than ¤60 million will be spent on meeting the needs of people who are experiencing homeless, almost €20 million of which will be spent on emergency accommodation.
The agency's report indicates that many homeless people are stuck in a cycle of emergency accommodation and have not moved on to longer-term options.
For example, most homeless people (1,651) are still in emergency accommodation. Of this number, a total of almost 1,000 homeless people have been in these settings for more than six months, while almost 600 have been in homeless services for over five years.
Sam McGuinness, chief executive of Dublin Simon Community and chair of the Homeless Network, said the lack of appropriate move-on accommodation has meant many people who are quite capable of living independently, are stuck in homeless services.
"This is detrimental to a person's chance of moving out of homelessness. We have been saying this for years, and highlighting the extra cost of this set-up to the government," he said.
He said the homeless problem was "being managed and not solved" and called on the Government to take immediate action starting with an implementation plan for the national Strategy on homelessness, which has been promised by the end of this year.
The Homeless Agency also published an evaluation of homeless, aimed at determining what type of model of support and housing is required to meet the needs of people who are homeless in Dublin.
It is focused on the development of a "pathways" approach, which will provide a more seamless route out of emergency accommodation and into longer-term housing.
Among the barriers identified in exiting homelessness are the need for access to more supported or appropriate accommodation, as well as detox, mental health and rehabilitation services.
