To many it is the dishevelled, wandering alcoholic with the shopping trolley loaded with everything he owns.

Sometimes we turn our mind to the predicament of young people, often children who through the fallout of broken families, of domestic abuse or mental illness have to live rough on the streets.

They are people just like us who deserve more than a sudden rush of sympathy that just as quickly ebbs away as we focus instead on our own lives.

The wider community of course needs to play a role in helping these people deal with their issues and in helping provide the skills and resources to return to a modicum of normality.

It could, after all, be the predicament of any one of us, or our children or grandchildren, so it is clearly incumbent on us to not conveniently forget the issue of homelessness, especially given it is on the rise in so many communities.

But a revelation from the St Vincent de Paul Society has shown homeless does indeed have many faces.

As part of its highlighting of this week’s Anti-Poverty Week, the organisation has pointed to what it says is now the country’s fastest growing group of homeless people.

Vinnies has shocked many by revealing how there has recently been an increase in the number of older women seeking assistance.

They are women who have spent half a lifetime and more as significant contributors to our society, having worked or raised a family. 

But they are also finding they don’t have a nest egg to support them in their later years when their health is not so great.

It is especially telling that Vinnies notes how so often such women are loath to ask for some assistance.

Usually they are women who find it difficult to get back into employment or experiencing some health issues, and they have just come to the end of a long stretch of unfortunate incidents.

St Vincent de Paul, as it always does, is on top of the issue and has established procedures to find them somewhere to sleep or to source them food, furniture and clothing.

It is now up to the wider community though to do what it can to provide support to welfare organisations and to these particularly vulnerable members of our society.