Homelessness in Limerick city has increased by almost 12% since the start of the year, according to official figures from a Limerick based Approved Housing Body.
Currently there are 285 homeless people in the city, and Novas says that emergency homeless accommodation is regularly at capacity.
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Head of Policy and Communications with Novas Una Burns said demand for emergency accommodation in Limerick exceeds capacity on a nightly basis.
"We operate about 100 units of emergency in temporary accommodation and in our emergency accommodation, which is a night-by-night service where people can access accommodation if they find themselves unexpectedly homeless, we're seeing waiting lists of about between, about 15 and 19 people on a nightly basis," she said.
Ms Burns said people are turned away every night and that the increase in homelessness in Limerick is due to several reasons.
In particular the Covid pandemic "did nothing to reduce the number of single people experiencing homelessness, while we had a very positive balance in reducing the number of families because of the protections that were placed in the private rental market, most homeless people weren't living in the private rental market, and could never access it," she said.
Ms Burns said there is already a high number of people who are homeless but there is added pressure that is compounded with the lack of throughput of services with very little pathways for single homeless people moving out of homelessness because of the lack of one-bed units.
"There's blocks in the system where when new people present, they find it very difficult to access supports and accommodations because of the blocks through the system.
"So, if we had more throughput and we had more opportunities for people to leave homeless services through accessing one bed units we'd certainly see less pressure on the accommodation services," she said.
Ms Burns said it is about providing more opportunity for single people to move on and to rent or through social housing or through the private rented market.
Limerick City and County Council has said it provides money for people to self-accommodate, which they say is in line with legislation.
However, Ms Burns said "it is tricky for people to self-accommodate".
Currently there is not much access to hotels and B&Bs coming into holiday season, and due to the pressures that the Ukrainian crisis has placed on accommodation and particularly commercial accommodations such as hotels, she added.
