Rough sleepers flock into Galway

An influx of “economic migrants” from Eastern Europe over the last three months is behind the chronic rise in homelessness on the streets of Galway – with almost every available doorway and park space in the city centre taken up by a rough sleeper by night.

Cope Galway assistant CEO Martin O’Connor said visible homelessness is the worst it has ever been in Galway City. There are now 37 people taking to sleeping bags under rudimentary shelter every night. And the situation is unlikely to improve for the foreseeable future.

All emergency accommodation has been full to capacity for several months with the average occupancy running to 100 nights – two years ago it was a maximum of 40 nights.

The ‘cold weather response’ initiative which provided 14 extra beds in a temporary facility on the Seamus Quirke Road closed at the end of April after almost 100% occupancy during the winter.

In January, Galway City Chief Executive Brendan McGrath stated that anyone who wanted a bed would be provided one – but that is not now the case, according to Mr O’Connor.

“Certainly, the capacity isn’t there since April. The big contributory factor to this is the shortage of housing to move onto. Emergency accommodation services are consistently full and there is a chronic shortage of affordable housing so people are staying in homeless services much longer so the availability of services is impacted,” he explained.

“There are more and more people getting squeezed out of the private housing market and single person housing is getting squeezed the most.”

In its most up to date figures, Galway City Council said there are now 37 rough sleepers on city streets. Of these, just 10 are eligible for support from the local authority.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.