Limerick Youth Housing Evaluation Report

The Limerick Youth Housing (LYH) initiative is an innovative approach to delivering youth homelessness services, which is available to young people at risk of homelessness in several locations in Ireland. It is a collaboration between Focus Ireland, Tusla and the local authority. Two notable features of Limerick Youth Housing include: 

  1. Young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness are offered stable and secure housing.
  2. Local services work collaboratively and in an interagency manner to ensure that young people receive a range of supports so that they can sustain their tenancies as they transition into adulthood. 

In 2016, Focus Ireland in partnership with Tusla commissioned Just Economics to carry out an evaluation of the service as it operates in Limerick, where the approach was first piloted in May 2013. As well as gathering evidence on the extent to which young people are achieving positive housing and non-housing outcomes, the evaluation has documented key characteristics of the service and how it works, especially the partnership approach to delivering the service. The aim has been to identify the key ingredients that work well to inform future development and any replication. 

Limerick is the most economically disadvantaged city in Ireland, and recent evidence suggests that its position has declined further relative to other cities since the financial crisis. Regionally, Limerick makes up half of all Tulsa work in the west of Ireland, yet it is not nearly as heavily resourced as Dublin. Limerick is notable for having successfully reduced the numbers of ‘roofless’ homeless people, and there are low numbers of rough sleepers in the city. Nonetheless, in response to the national housing shortage, homelessness began to rise in 2016 along with other areas of the country. 

The service mirrors key components of the Housing First for Youth framework. Key features of this framework include: access to housing, a client-centred approach that is holistic and recognises the developmental needs of young people, and an emphasis on social and community integration. However, this service was not founded on these principles; rather it developed organically in response to an identified gap in provision for young people in the area, and the need for productive collaboration across a range of stakeholders. As such, while this report can contribute to the growing evidence base on a ‘housing before treatment’ approach to youth homelessness, it is an initiative which is firmly based within a local context, and is being evaluated on that basis.

Publication Date: 
2017