The plight of the homeless is under the spotlight

The plight of the homeless in Northern Ireland has been highlighted at a special soccer match in Belfast.

Teams from the homeless community in Belfast and Dublin joined a number of other sides at Maysfield Leisure Centre on Tuesday in the hope of kicking homelessness into touch.

The main aim of the Kick-off Homelessness campaign is to encourage social integration through sport.

Ireland's Issues magazine is behind the campaign and has been instrumental in raising the profile of the issues of homelessness and poverty world-wide.

Last year, they successfully entered a team into the Homeless World Cup held in Graz, Austria where a group of 10 homeless men represented Ireland.

World Cup

On Tuesday night, hopes were expressed that the match could lead to a soccer league in Belfast.

Co-ordinator Jon Glackin said the project had given many homeless people a focus for greater involvement in society and opening up opportunities in further education.

Belfast has already fielded a team in a national tournament in Dublin.

However, its goal is to gain some funding to help get an Irish team to the Homeless World Cup in Sweden in July.

Earlier this month, the Housing Executive announced a �1.4m funding package to help tackle homelessness across the province. This increased its annual spending on homelessness to �26.6m.

It said that the numbers of people claiming to be homeless had remained static at about 8,500 per year.