Focus Ireland is set to launch its first ever family centre in Dublin city centre for those gripped by the homeless crisis.
The centre will provide a place for families to feed their children, do washing and get help with homework the homeless charity has confirmed.
It was announced as Focus Ireland launched its urgent Christmas appeal.
According to the appeal, new figures show that 12% of children in families currently supported by Focus Ireland’s family services were born into homelessness, reports Dublin Live.
One woman, known as "Louise", shared her personal experience. She said: "I had just found out I was pregnant when our landlord told us he was selling the house we were renting.
"Our world fell apart. We were desperate – searching day and night for somewhere new to stay. Constantly looking for a safe place to stay was hard enough. It was exhausting.
"But all the time at the front of my mind I just had this constant fear – I had no idea where we would be when my baby arrived.”
Louise, her partner and two children were all sleeping in one small and cold room in a B&B the night she had to go in to hospital to have her baby.
She said: “My little Luke was born at 5.02AM. But the first call I made wasn’t to family. It was to Focus Ireland.”
Focus Ireland Life President and Founder Sr Stan said: “There’s a record number of 10,397 people homeless and nearly 4,000 of them are children.
"I have never seen it this bad with many babies now being born into homelessness.
"Many of these families lost their homes while the mother was pregnant such as was the case for the woman featured in our appeal.
“Being homeless causes terrible trauma to any family or individual but it is hurting children the most.
"We are seeing this through our own work supporting these families. Babies are living in tiny hotel rooms where they don’t even have enough room to learn how to crawl properly."
She continued: "We will soon open a special family centre in Dublin City Centre which will provide a place for families to feed their children, do washing and get help with homework.
"The centre will also have specially trained Focus Ireland support staff to work with families to help get them out of homelessness as quickly as possible. There will also be child support workers to work with children who are homeless.
“We have had to set up this centre to help families while they are homeless but the real answer is of course that we urgently need more social housing and better prevention to end this crisis.”
