Dublin Simon Community has expressed concern that a new 100-bed residential recovery centre is unable to operate at full capacity due to a lack of funding.
Forty-nine beds have not been available for homeless people at the treatment facility since it opened six months ago.
The Health Service Executive has said it is working with the charity to make additional beds available this year.
Staff at Dublin Simon said that the facility is part of the solution to combatting the wider issue of homelessness.
Trish Curran was a shell of herself when she arrived at the Dublin Simon Recovery Unit six months ago.
"When I came in the door, I didn't look like this. My head was down, I couldn't look up. I was shaking. I was tiny, you know."
Ms Curran is now confident and bubbly, greeting the staff at the recovery unit who helped her through detox and recovery.
"The minute I got on to the (detox) floor, I was just sure I'd be safe. And I was safe. I was safe the whole time here. I just felt safe the second I walked in the door."
Safety was something Ms Curran had been seeking for some time. Safety from addiction, safety from emergency hostels, a safe space to heal.
"When you go into detox, there are amazing nursing staff. You're monitored. Nothing was too much and you're told your only job is to get well.
"Then I got down to got on to the recovery floor, where you've got much more freedom."
She spent 17 weeks in the unit on Ushers Quay before she moved to a step-down residential setting on the southside of the city. Her recovery has been remarkable.
She is aware of her luck in getting a bed in the facility.
Other homeless people are waiting to gain access because just 51 out of 100 beds are operational due to a lack of funding.
CEO Catherine Kenny said the charity is unable to give people the service required, because 49 beds are sitting unused.
"The administration of the funding piece is the delay," according to Ms Kenny.
The HSE has responsibility for the administration of the funds which come from the Department of Health, and said €4.9 million was provided by the department in Budget 2025 to operate the 51 beds.
The service was established to enable people to move out of homelessness by combatting addiction through a standalone acute service that is inexpensive compared to acute hospitals.
"We really need to open these up these 49 beds so that we can give more people the opportunity to move through (the system)," said Ms Kenny.
"You’re talking about thousands of people over the life of this service that will actually be impacted positively by our intervention".
The majority of those who die homeless in Ireland do so because of drugs, which is why staff at the unit are determined to tackle the problem.
Director of clinical and therapeutic services with the charity Naomi Nicholson says that in order to end homelessness, the huge addiction issues that are within the homeless population need to be addressed.
In a written response to a parliamentary question from the Social Democrats, Minister of State at the Department of Health Colm Burke said that the new facility would deliver around 700 treatments per year across different clinical programmes and that this would represent an increase in the delivery of treatment episodes of 24%, with a 26% increase in referrals from hospitals and HSE addiction services.
The department is currently "monitoring and evaluating" the service.
Trish Curran is now in a residential step-down facility in the southside of Dublin City with others who are also in recovery.
It is a long way from emergency hostels.
She remarks that the monthly homeless figures are just "so ingrained now" that it is part of being Irish today.
"It shouldn’t be that way, but it is," she shrugs.
The HSE said it is working with Dublin Simon to incrementally open additional beds from the middle of this year and will submit a business case to the department for a further increase in bed capacity for next year.
