Single homeless adults 'overlooked', warns charity

Simon Communities of Ireland has warned that single adults have been largely overlooked in housing policy and homelessness responses, despite being the dominant demographic living in emergency accommodation.

The most recent figures from the Department of Housing show 61% of all adults living in emergency accommodation are classed as "single".

This figure includes childless couples, but very many adults are experiencing homelessness on their own.

"We simply won't end homelessness if we are not talking about this cohort and putting targeted resources behind it," said Ber Grogan, Executive Director of Simon Communities of Ireland.

As well as representing 61% of all adults in emergency accommodation, single adult homelessness has increased by 61% in the last five years, climbing from 4,501 in July 2021 to 7,244 in July 2026.

Tackling this is the focus of Simon Communities of Ireland's first national fundraising campaign: Homeless & Alone: One Big Push.

It's also a key element of its conference taking place today, which will examine how Ireland can meet its commitment to end homelessness by 2030.

Last November, the Government published the Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030 housing plan in November 2025, which introduced specific measures targeting child and family homelessness.

And this month, Minister for Housing James Browne confirmed that the Government will shortly publish a new Child and Family Homelessness Action Plan.

"It's really important, of course, to have the family and child action plans. Absolutely no child should be in emergency accommodation," Ms Grogan said.

"We simply cannot allow for single adults to be forgotten about and by-passed when investing in solutions," she said.

'Help from different departments'

Simon Communities of Ireland is calling for a cross-government plan to address single adult homelessness to be led by the Department of the Taoiseach.

"It requires help from all the different departments, particularly health, addiction, mental health; it isn't just something about housing supply for the Housing Minister," Ms Grogan said.

"There are some really innovative ways of working where we ask: 'What does this person need and how can we support them with that?'

"This isn't rocket science, we could absolutely end homelessness, but we need to stop pushing the responsibility to just one department," she added.

Seven in 10 homeless adults live in the Dublin region, and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive publishes monthly reports detailing the reasons people give when they present as homeless.

The most common reason given by families was the same every month this year: they were issued with a Notice of Termination and had to leave their rented accommodation.

The monthly percentage of families that gave receiving a Notice of Termination as the reason they became homeless ranged from 31% to 57%.

For single or childless adults, that monthly percentage ranged between 10% an 16%.

Read more:
'It is a lonely road' - How one community worker survived homelessness and addiction
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Other common reasons given by single adults presenting as homeless in Dublin each month in 2026 were leaving Direct Provision (a reason given by between 13% to 19%) and leaving an informal tenancy (between 7% and 14%).

There was also significant variation in other reasons given for rough sleeping: the breakdown of a relationship with a parent, the breakdown of a relationship with a partner, leaving TUSLA care, leaving a hospital, or leaving an institution among them.

"There are so many reasons why a person can be forced into the trauma of homelessness and usually it's being let down by a number of systems earlier in their lives, whether that's trying to access addiction services, mental health services, domestic violence refuges," Ms Grogan said.

"People being born into poverty is setting them up for more either mental health difficulties or physical health difficulties and all of these can mean then that you might end up experiencing homelessness.

"[Then there are] people leaving state care, people on pensions not able to pay rent, all of these groups of people that make up our communities have simple needs," Ms Grogan said.