EDITORIAL: Emergency accommodation figures are not a good way to measure homelessness

When a reporter writes a story and it’s published, we don’t have any control over how it will be received. 

Sure, we have high hopes for some and wishful thinking for others.

Impact is a little more elusive. Often people think what we write is what we think.

We are not in the business of telling you what to think, only what happened. 

But, reporters do have opinions. How could we not? 

We are the silent observer in so many rooms. We listen to everyone else’s opinions and see down to small details, how decisions are made. 

A browse through old copies of the Tipperary Star or The Nationalist will show you that local reporters were writing about the same issues 10 years, 15 years, and even 20 years ago. Health care, the local A&E, road infrastructure, housing lists, and homelessness. 

On page three of this week’s editions, we are looking at homelessness again.

If we could choose one takeaway from the report, it would be that emergency accommodation numbers are not a good way to measure homelessness. 

It is only in recent years that we have had a county breakdown of monthly homelessness figures.

And, somehow we are no closer to a clear picture of the scale of the problem.

Homelessness looks different to different groups of people.  Some people are in emergency accommodation and are captured in the monthly reports by the Department of Housing.  

Some people live with their families, their lives on hold.  Some people are on the streets, in doorways across the county. 

Other people - who have received Notices to Quit - are counting the clock down until they lose their homes. 

Homelessness is a crisis.  But, how we measure homelessness is too simple. 

There is comfort in simplicity but that’s all. 

Councillors at last month’s sitting of the Tipperary County Council called for another special meeting to discuss housing. 

The Tipperary CEO Sinead Carr rightly pointed out that the whole of the housing crisis could not be the focus of the meeting. 

Whatever happens next, needs to have a practical impact for those in or facing homelessness. Those in emergency accommodation and the hidden homeless around the county.

And, if we are to report for those people, we need to know the scale of the problem.