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Housing overtakes substance use as top reason people seek Ana Liffey support
Ana Liffey's 2025 annual report shows housing and homelessness have overtaken substance use as the most common reason people seek support, accounting for 28% of service users. Chief executive Dawn Russell attributed the shift to increased economic pressures and highlighted work with young care leavers and domestic violence survivors.
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Housing and homelessness overtook substance use as the most common reason people sought help from Ana Liffey last year, according to the charity's 2025 annual report, published on Monday.
The report shows that housing-related issues accounted for 28 per cent of service users, ahead of substance use and treatment at 23 per cent. Other needs included social and welfare support (15 per cent), training and education (10 per cent), physical health (9 per cent), legal and criminal justice issues (5 per cent), harm reduction supplies (5 per cent) and mental health issues (4 per cent).
The change reflects a shift in the challenges facing the 4,609 individuals who sought the organisation's support, the report says.
Ana Liffey, formerly the Ana Liffey Drug Project, was founded in 1982 on Dublin's Middle Abbey Street. The charity now operates across the Dublin region, the northeast and in Limerick, working mainly with people affected by addiction but also in areas beyond substance use, including housing, domestic violence and welfare supports.
Dawn Russell was appointed chief executive last year upon the resignation of Tony Duffin, who had served almost 20 years in the post. The report notes the board faced the challenge of recruiting a new CEO in a transparent and timely manner.
Speaking ahead of the report's launch, Russell said: "Supporting people out of long-term homelessness is an important goal for us at Ana Liffey, and we are supported by both Dublin Regional Homeless Executive and Limerick City Council to do our work."
She described the work of the charity's Private Emergency Accommodation Assertive Case Management (PACT) Team in Dublin and the Limerick Rough Sleeper Project, saying they "work at the coal face of homelessness, meeting people who are in crisis and supporting them to stabilise their lives and access supported accommodation and plan for their futures, while they face incredibly challenging circumstances and with limited resources."
Russell attributed the rise in housing need to economic pressures, saying: "Increased economic pressures have undoubtedly been the reason for some of the people we see ending up in homelessness. The sense that we are all only one paycheck away from the risk of homelessness really resonates at the moment."
She also highlighted work with "younger people who have become homeless after leaving State care and women who have nowhere to live as they flee domestic violence."
How each outlet told it
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Framing: Emphasizes that homelessness has surpassed addiction as the primary reason for seeking support from Ana Liffey.
Facts Included:
Housing needs and homelessness have overtaken substance use as the most common reason people seek support from Ana Liffey, their 2025 annual report has shown.
Ana Liffey has centres in Dublin, the Midwest and the North East of Ireland and operates a number of outreach programmes.
CEO Dawn Russell said, “Supporting people out of long-term homelessness is an important goal for us at Ana Liffey, and we are supported by both Dublin Regional Homeless Executive and Limerick City Council to do our work.”
Russell said, “Our Dublin Private Emergency Accommodation Assertive Case Management (PACT) Team and Limerick Rough Sleeper Project work at the coal face of homelessness, meeting people who are in crisis and supporting them to stabilise their lives and access supported accommodation and plan for their futures, while they face incredibly challenging circumstances and with limited resources.”
Russell said, “Increased economic pressures have undoubtedly been the reason for some of the people we see ending up in homelessness.”
Russell said, “The sense that we are all only one paycheck away from the risk of homelessness really resonates at the moment.”
Russell said, “We are also working with younger people who have become homeless after leaving State care and women who have nowhere to live as they flee domestic violence.”
Framing: Headline emphasizes the shift in primary issue from addiction to homelessness among Ana Liffey service users. — Tone is neutral and informative, presenting statistics and official statements without emotional language.
Facts Included:
Housing and homelessness overtook drug use as the most common reason people sought help last year from Ana Liffey.
The organisation’s 2025 annual report, published on Monday, shows substance use/treatment was the primary reason for which 23 per cent of its service users sought help last year.
Ana Liffey said housing/homelessness was, for the first time, the primary reason for a higher proportion of contacts, accounting for 28 per cent of its service users last year.
Other needs included social and welfare support (15 per cent); training and education (10 per cent); physical health (9 per cent); legal/criminal justice issues (5 per cent); harm reduction supplies (5 per cent) and mental health issues (4 per cent).
The change reflects the shift in the challenges facing the 4,609 individuals who sought the organisation’s support, the report says.
The charity was founded in 1982 on Dublin’s Middle Abbey Street as the Ana Liffey Drug Project.
Now named Ana Liffey, it works across the Dublin region, the northeast and in Limerick, mainly with people affected by addiction but also in areas beyond substance use.
Dawn Russell was appointed chief executive last year upon the resignation of Tony Duffin after almost 20 years in the post.
Russell said increased economic pressures were undoubtedly the reason for some of the people they see ending up in homelessness.
The charity is also working with younger people who have become homeless after leaving State care and women who become homeless after fleeing domestic violence.
Russell noted increasing domestic violence, increasing homelessness, new and potent street drugs and a notable rise in stigma towards those who society has let down.
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Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status is Contested when two claims on this page negate each other; otherwise it counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimHousing needs and homelessness overtook substance use as the most common reason people sought support from Ana Liffey in 2025.
ClaimDawn Russell said: "Supporting people out of long-term homelessness is an important goal for us at Ana Liffey, and we are supported by both Dublin Regional Homeless Executive and Limerick City Council to do our work."
ClaimDawn Russell said: "Our Dublin Private Emergency Accommodation Assertive Case Management (PACT) Team and Limerick Rough Sleeper Project work at the coal face of homelessness, meeting people who are in crisis and supporting them to stabilise their lives and access supported accommodation and plan for their futures, while they face incredibly challenging circumstances and with limited resources."
ClaimDawn Russell said: "We are also working with younger people who have become homeless after leaving State care and women who have nowhere to live as they flee domestic violence."
ClaimDawn Russell said: "It's not always the case that homeless people are using substances. Neither is it the case that all of our clients using substances are homeless. These social harms can impact lives all across Ireland, regardless of background or other factors."
ClaimDawn Russell said: "Our goal as a harm reduction charity is to meet people where they are at and support them from harm to hope, whatever that means for them in their own circumstances."
ClaimDawn Russell said: "As I look ahead, I can see new challenges on our path. Increasing domestic violence, increasing homelessness, new and potent street drugs and a notable rise in stigma towards those who society has let down."