Ms Niamh Randall:

I reinforce the point that homelessness is avoidable. The key point is that the causes of homelessness are structural causes such as poverty, inequality and exclusion. When one speaks to people who are homeless they often say their tenancy broke down, they were kicked out of home, were asked to leave or whatever. When one drills down further, one sees that it is usually family dispute, family breakdown, domestic violence or violence in the home, all of which would have come to the attention of somebody at some point along the way, but nobody intervened. It is absolutely avoidable, and prevention and early intervention are the key issues in terms of anti-social behaviour, advice and information, and a range of other matters.

We have people who are stuck in long-term homelessness. We do not know the figure because official data collection systems do not collect that information. However, we know a large body of people are stuck in long-term homelessness, and the longer people remain homeless the greater the impact on their health, well-being and personal welfare. The housing-led approach, which is Government policy, is a very effective way of working with people who are homeless and moving them into independent living with support as required. There is rapid re-housing, so when people become homeless, rather than remaining in emergency accommodation or temporary support services, they would be rapidly re-housed with the necessary supports which means they would not necessarily have the longer-term effects of being long-term homeless.