Youth Homelessness in the Dublin Region: A profile of young, single emergency accommodation users in 2016, 2017 and 2018

On behalf of Focus Ireland I am pleased to welcome the publication of ‘Youth Homelessness in the Dublin Region’. This is the first instalment in our new ‘Insights into Youth Homelessness’ series, which will build on our successful ‘Insights into Family Homelessness’ series.We hope that this new research series will inform more effective responses to youth homelessness by policy makers and homeless service providers. In this respect this publication is particularly timely because the recently published Programme for Government 2020 commits the new government to ‘develop a National Youth Homelessness Strategy’. This report will provide valuable information to inform this strategy because it presents the first analysis of quantitative data on young people who use emergency accommodation for homeless people in Dublin. The report fills important gaps in our knowledge of why this group enters homelessness and when and how they leave homelessness and enables further exploration of some of the insights generated by the qualitative research into youth homelessness, most recently Paula Mayock and Sarah Parker’s book entitled ‘Living in Limbo: Homeless Young People’s Paths to Housing’ (2017)1.It is also important to acknowledge that this report would not have been possible without the support of Focus Ireland’s donors and valuable collaborations. In 2018, Focus Ireland’s Research Sub-Committee decided, in response to an invitation from Professor Michelle Norris of UCD, that it would part fund a PhD as part of the Irish Research Council (IRC) Enterprise Partnership Scholarship Scheme. This important scheme is an opportunity for voluntary sector organisations, with a commitment to research, to work with leading academics and support doctoral research. It has enabled Focus Ireland to support Cliodhna Bairead’s very useful PhD research on homelessness among single people in Dublin. The report is also the result of a collaboration with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) which provided access to the high-quality data examined in this report.1 ‘Living in Limbo’ was commissioned by Focus