Government can solve crisis with stroke of a pen..

Time to stop homeless being excluded from vital services

- CIAN O'CALLAGHAN

No one should have to sleep rough on our streets. Yet, each night as we go to bed, people who have lost their homes are sleeping in doorways and tents.

On cold winter nights, they camp up on courthouse steps, in parks and along the banks of our canals.

Given that millions of euro is being spent on emergency accommodation, how is it that we still have so many people sleeping rough?

While some people who are homeless decide not to take up emergency accommodation because of safety and privacy concerns, somewhere in the region of 70 people in Dublin alone are sleeping rough because they are being denied access to emergency accommodation.

At the same time, emergency beds lie empty.

In recent weeks, homeless organisations have reported that between one third to a half of rough sleepers have been refused shelter.

A decision by local councils to refuse emergency accommodation to people who are not from their area is leading to growing numbers of people being excluded and left on the streets.