Waterford allocated €1.5 million to get families out of long-term homelessness
Minister James Browne, announced €50 million in funding for the eight local authorities with the highest figures.
Waterford City and County Council has been allocated €1.5 million in funding to take families out of long-term emergency accommodation.
Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne, announced €50 million in funding for housing acquisitions.
The fund is to be divided among the eight local authorities that have the highest number of families in emergency accommodation for more than 24 months in the Dublin region and 12 months in the remaining four regional authorities.
“We are in a housing crisis, and a crisis calls for swift and targeted measures that get to those who are most vulnerable as quickly as possible. I want to see children off our homelessness list, full stop.
"But today’s action is about getting children who are in emergency accommodation for an extended period into safe, secure and permanent homes, as all children deserve.
"This is just one part of a significant and ongoing wider work to tackle Ireland’s levels of homelessness, experienced particularly acutely in our capital city, which requires decisive interventions like this,” said Minister Browne.
The new funding will support larger families with children and Housing First clients to exit long-term homeless emergency accommodation.
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage publishes a monthly homelessness report.
However, that report only gives regional family figures and not county totals.
And it gives no indication of how many families have been in emergency accommodation for long periods of time.
In July, the report showed 68 families in the south east region were in emergency accommodation.
That figure consists of 94 adults and 116 children.
Today’s funding allocation shows that Waterford has some of the highest numbers of families in emergency accommodation over 12 months.
“I am instructing local authorities to specifically target this additional tranche of funding support at family households in emergency accommodation that are being supported to exit emergency accommodation into housing.
"I want a reduction, on an urgent basis, in the number of families in long-term emergency accommodation.
“This targeted €50m acquisition programme will complement local authority efforts to exit families from homelessness using other delivery streams and the Housing Assistance Payment.
"A particular focus will be the acquisition of four-bedroom properties, which have not been available through other delivery streams,” said Minister Browne.
The other local authorities to receive funding are Cork City (€2 million), Dublin City (€22 million), Dun Laoghaire Rathdown (2.5 million), Fingal (10 million), Galway City(€4 million), Limerick City and County (€3 million) and South Dublin (€5 million).
Waterford City and County received the lowest allocation.
Progress will be monitored and funding will be reallocated as needed to maximise the impact of the funding for homeless households.
€325 million has already been allocated for the second-hand acquisitions programme in 2025.
The minister confirmed that there is enough funding remaining available from the original €325m allocation to allow all local authorities to complete whatever priority acquisitions they have on hand for 2025 delivery.
It is estimated that local authorities might potentially complete around 850 acquisitions this year.
This includes hundreds of Tenant-in-Situ purchases.
The Tenant-in-Situ acquisitions scheme, which was introduced as a temporary funding measure as part of the Department’s second-hand acquisitions funding programme, remains in place.
