The charity said that in January 2015 there were 1,017 women homeless but by January this year this had nearly doubled to just under 2,000 (1,997) women homeless in Ireland. In this same time the number of men who are homeless has shot up by 40% from 1,968 to 2,763.

The figures below show that as the housing and homeless crisis has deepened, the face of homelessness has significantly changed in the last two years alone.

Focus Ireland Director of Advocacy Mike Allen said: “The housing crisis has seen the crisis continue to grow to unprecedented levels as a record number of 7,167 people are now homeless in Ireland. One of the striking aspects of this is the increasing and terrible burden of homelessness that is visited on women  and children. Latest figures show women now account for 42% of the number of adults homeless and this has increased from 34% over the last two years alone.”

He added: “In light of the rising number of women and children who are homeless one thing we really need to change is that there is practically no mention of women in homelessness policy. We need government housing and homeless policy to have a greater knowledge of the often specific pressures that effect women and can cause them to become homeless. This would help all work towards preventing homelessness from happening in the first place or where it does occur to ensure that it is for as short a time as possible.”

Editors notes: The latest homeless figures are always available on our website here  .

Contact: Roughan MacNamara- 086 85 15 117