Focus Ireland, the homelessness and housing charity supporting children, families and individuals across Ireland through its services and housing projects in Waterford, Kilkenny, Cork, Sligo and Limerick, has appointed The Brill Building as its lead PR agency. The charity’s motto, ‘Challenging Homelessness, Changing Lives’, reflects the fact that while the crisis continues to deepen, things would be even worse without Focus Ireland.
The charity works to support people while they are homeless, preventing others from losing their homes in the first place and also supporting many to secure a home. The latest figures show that homelessness is up by 14 per cent in the last year. As many thousands more are at serious risk of losing their home, housing is expected to be top of the news and political agenda in the election year ahead.
Action
Focus Ireland has called for more urgent government action as there is now a total number of 13,318 people homeless. They helped 1,668 families and more than 4,000 children in 2022, while 8,165 customers engaged with the charity’s advice and information (A&I) service, an increase of 8.5 per cent on 2021. Meanwhile, Focus Ireland Housing Association (FIHA) provides over 1,400 homes. FIHA delivered 130 houses in 2022.
The charity prevented 613 households from losing their homes, an 18 per cent rise compared to 2021. The Brill Building PR division joins Focus Ireland on a three-year contract to the inter-agency team to help the organisation in their mission to fulfill their vision that every person in the country has a right to a place they can call home. The agency will be working primarily with the charity’s fundraising and digital teams.
Pictured is The Brill Building PR team that pitched for Focus Ireland, from left: Peter Snodden, Maria Rolston, Roisin Keown and Sorcha Hanratty
