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Updated 9pm
ON THIS DAY one year ago, the body of 43-year-old Jonathan Corrie was found in a Dublin doorway just a stone’s throw from the building in which this country’s government makes its most important decisions.
The father-of-two had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for years and had been living in Dublin for eight years. His death, on a cold winter night, sparked nationwide outrage and demands for real and tangible action to be taken to tackle what has become a huge crisis.
It pushed Environment Minister Alan Kelly to convene an emergency summit on homelessness, bringing together all of the key parties in one place to come up with a solution. The immediate response was to make additional 220 emergency beds available in Dublin.
Local authorities in Dublin were directed to put 50% of all new housing allocations towards vulnerable groups, to provide accommodation for over 300 people.
Kelly told reporters that there would be no need for anyone to have to sleep rough in Dublin “unless they make that choice themselves”. These were described by the government at the time as short-term responses.
‘They’re trapped’
One year later and homeless service providers say those short-term responses never developed into long-term solutions.
Niamh Randall of the Simon Communities told TheJournal.ie that homeless numbers have continued to grow and are continually met with emergency provisions.
The challenge now is that we don’t have the option of moving people on, they’re trapped in emergency accommodation.
“We need to move away from this emergency-led response and look at prevention and keeping people in their homes.”
The most significant change in Ireland’s homelessness problem has been the increase in the number of families losing their homes. An average of 70 to 80 families become homeless every month in Dublin alone and the key reason is the struggle to keep up with rent increases.
Randall said her organisation welcomed Kelly’s announcement of a two-year rent freeze but it was rent certainty that was needed and that has not been delivered.
“The second piece that hasn’t happened is rent supplement – it remains at the level that was set in June 2013, yet we know rents have increased by over 20% since then,” she said.
An analysis of rent markets by the charity in August this year revealed only 7% of properties fell within rent supplement parameters, and in some areas there were no homes at all.
Though she welcomed the government’s social housing strategy, she said things just are not moving fast enough with just 20 new houses being built in the first half of this year.
‘Not good enough’
Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, the founder of Focus Ireland, has said despite government promises about homelessness being top of the agenda, the crisis has deepened.
“When most people think of homelessness, they think of a man in a sleeping bag in a shop doorway. This is the most visible and tragic manifestation of homelessness,” she said.
“People in this situation usually have complex needs such as mental health or addiction. Many grew up in state care and left at 18 without any support. People in these situations often need intensive supports. Offering them a bed for one night and out on the street in the morning to spend the day looking for a bed for the next night is simply not good enough.”
She too was critical of the failure to deliver rent certainty:
The two year rent freeze which he is introducing may slow the rent spiral, but thousands of families are still burdened with the massive rent rises of the last two years. If rent supplement is not increased to reflect the 30% rises that have already hit them, they will continue to lose their homes.
Winter 2015
Almost 2,500 adults without children are now homeless across the State, along with 1,571 children, and 980 parents.
The latest short-term response from the government has come in the form of a Dublin ‘cold weather action plan’ providing for an extra 174 emergency beds as well as accommodation for couples and families.
Last year’s provision of beds filled up rapidly, with figures for June this year showing 1,975 of the available 1,977 beds were occupied.
Latest tough sleeper figures indicate there are 105 people sleeping rough, though the Inner City Helping Homeless group says it interacted with 145 rough sleepers last Saturday night.
Government politicians have said the 175 new emergency beds should be sufficient to see people through the winter months. But the Simon Communities’ Niamh Randall says the fact that last year’s emergency beds were filled up so quickly shows there is a gap between rough sleeper figures and the reality.
In response to a query from TheJournal.ie, Alan Kelly’s department said that at the end of September, 739 ‘households’ (comprising individuals and family units) had exited homeless accommodation and moved into “verified and sustained tenancy arrangements”.
A spokesperson said the long-term solution to homelessness is to increase the supply of homes. The government plans to provide 35,000 new social housing units over a six-year period.
Other actions the department mentioned included:
While it looks like, in the short term, no one will be left without a bed this winter if they want one, we are still a long way off the government’s target of ending long-term homelessness by 2016.
“We’re just consistently looking at short-term emergency responses. We know that being homeless is extremely stressful, it’s actually very traumatic and the longer people remain in this temporary accommodation the greater the impact on their overall health and wellbeing,” Niamh Randall said.
We have a history of short-term solutions becoming long-term and people deserve much better than that.”
First published 8am
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Its obvious whats going on. Kenny needs full control of the terms of reference and scope of the inquiry to ensure FG (who are up to their necks in it as well) and their cronies can’t be called in front of the committee for scrutiny. It will purely be a ‘what FF did’ re-election tool in the run up to the next election, all funded by the taxpayer.
It is simply stunning that this mouthpiece and prominent Apologist / Member of FG , is given the opportunity every week to espouse this inaccurate Fascism Speak on The Journal.ie .
I have no problem with right to make a point – but please keep the articles accurate to basic facts please .
The Banking Enquiry lost its Democratic teeth , when it’s mandate was undermined by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his undemocratic Dictatorship .
As a result , it will come to zero – for that reason alone !
Correct.
endas been hiding in the dail since 1975, I don’t think he realises that people are no longer being spoonfed the news by RTE and newspapers. Between the little ‘reichstag fire’ on prom night and changing the rules on the banking enquiry after the vote, he has certainly reminded us of FGs roots.
Fine Gael mouthpiece you say? The article is highly critical of the government. Hardly mouthpiece stuff.
Always ironic to see the usual Sinn Fein sympathizers speak of Fascism…
Can’t stand the guy either but in his defender I thought he literally did say your comment when he spoke about the current government being undemocratic
Who voted against the bailout, Aaron?
http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0664/D.0664.200810170003.html
” changing the rules to alter a result you dont care for is un democratic” hang on a minute isn’t that exactly what happened with the lisbon treaty?
Our friends from SF HQ, Werejam and Ciara are obviously delighted with any device to scupper the banking enquiry. They need FF as strong as possible for their 2016 SF/FF coalition: the more delayed the banking enquiry can be the better in that regard.
The government of the day up to 2008 are most culpable. Anything that derails a quest for that accountability is a good thing it would seem. SF are masters in the dark arts of misdirection and diversion.
Any comment to make about your partys senior member, Phil hogans, cushy relationship with ‘Fingers’ Fingleton which resulted in him securing a €900,000 interest only loan?
FG want control to make sure the spotlight is kept on FF. One member of enquiry has already indicated that enda kenny should be called in front of the committee, interesting times ahead….
There you go again.
In fairness John Enda has all ready scuppered the banking inquiry by what he has said about the inquiry and its make up…..
Yeah, let’s cancel the whole thing. We aren’t idiots are we.
Europe must find this hysterical.
We moan that we were duped into guaranteeing banking debts by the ECB.
FF/Dept of Finance lose the letter from Trichet.
We try to hold and an enquiry.
But it get’s cancelled by the rabble because it might show FF in an unfair light. We wouldn’t want that now would we. It will be too difficult to avoid blaming FF for anything, so we’d be better off not having any enquiry.
SF now seem to think it is the borrower’s fault again, using werejam’s example of Fingleton & Hogan. Until now it was the lender’s fault, and the foreign lenders to the domestic lenders fault. Which is it? Do you not want to go after anyone in case you miss out on Phil Hogan and anyone else who were able to get dodgy loans for our dodgy banks?
This comment makes no sense. SF didn’t scupper the banking inquiry. That’s the whole point of this piece. If anything, SF are in competition with FF for votes. So by keeping the banking inquiry going, they keep the heat on FF. And if the polls and recent elections are anything to go by, Irish people need reminding what FF actually did to this country
SF are complicit with FF in derailing the enquiry. SF+FF have something cooking in the oven. How long will it be before it is ready for public consumption.
Fooling the public for another two years seems unlikely for this goverment. maybe it should be RTE providing the 4.6 million budget for this fictional mini series where the guilty end up getting their costs and drawing down their pensions. We are stuck with the debt no matter what, we are stuck with the Dail and the Seanad, lobbyist have written their own code of conduct and handed the finished copy to Howlin to publish announcing reform for the people.the trust is gone all that remains now is how many more generations will lie down and allow themselves to be treated as idiots.
This is no “show trial”. It has no teeth. It is a talk-show.
Pretty much a rewritten version of an Irish Times article from earlier this week. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/has-sinn-f%C3%A9in-saved-the-government-s-bacon-1.1836701
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