Homelessness duration and stability: A typology of emergency accommodation usage patterns in Dublin

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of data on the use of emergency accommodation (EA) by single homeless people in Dublin, Ireland between 2016 and 2018. The objective is to reflect on, test and critique the use of administrative data in research on homelessness heretofore in Ireland and internationally. The article focuses on Culhane, Kuhn and colleagues' ground-breaking analysis of data on single adult users of homeless shelters. Their typology focuses on ‘homelessness episodes’, which may disguise important patterns in EA usage and lead to the mis-categorisation of some shelter residents. As an alternative, the analysis of EA usage in Dublin presented in this article focuses on transitions into and out of EA and the stability of EA usage between these transitions. This design is grounded in strong research evidence which indicates that stability of EA usage is a critical consideration in terms of successful exit from homelessness. Applying this design to our dataset on EA usage in Dublin between 2016 and 2018 reveals four clear EA usage patterns – short stay, medium stay, long stay inconsistent and long stay stable. We believe that this four-part typology more accurately represents patterns of EA use in Dublin in recent years.