Focus Ireland has set out how the organisation will expand the delivery of secure, affordable homes and strengthen prevention and support services for people who are homeless and those at risk of losing their homes over the coming years.
The Joint Strategic Plan 2026 to 2030 called 'Turning the Tide' will see the charity acquiring or constructing 1,000 additional homes over the next five years.
It would increase Focus Ireland's housing stock to around 2,700 homes by 2030.
Alongside housing delivery, the strategy sets out service commitments.
Focus Ireland aims to support 1,930 households out of homelessness into secure new tenancies, while its tenancy sustainment services are projected to support 1,750 at risk households each year.
Focus Ireland has described the commitments as "urgent because the national crisis has escalated sharply".
Homelessness has increased by 108% since the charity launched its previous strategy in 2021 - rising from 8,313 people in emergency accommodation in February 2021 to 17,308 people in February this year.
CEO Pat Dennigan said the country could not accept permanent emergency as the new normal.
"The overall level of homelessness will only fall if Government matches that effort with determined implementation and the delivery of genuinely affordable homes at scale," he said.
"Homelessness has more than doubled since our last strategy began, and it is now vital that Government shows far greater urgency in easing this human crisis."
Mr Dennigan said the strategy was grounded in Focus Ireland’s day to day experience of what works and that the rising numbers are not an inevitability.
Read more:
Sharp increase in people leaving Direct Provision become homeless - DRHE
124 people died while homeless in 2022, Health Research Board finds
