Co-operation by agencies, especially health service providers, is needed to solve the problem of homelessness, Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger told a conference yesterday hosted by the Cork Simon Community.
Baroness Neuberger told a seminar entitled, The Caring City - Ending Homelessness in Cork, that cities here and in the UK could learn a lot from the programmes in many US cities.
"It isn't really an issue about homelessness, it's mostly an issue about people with long-term mental illness, people who have fallen apart from their families.
"It's particularly about men - not always - but particularly about men who have fallen by the wayside from their families . . . and it's about health services getting their act together and social care services getting their act together." She said cities such as Philadelphia had made major strides in tackling homelessness and she cited the programme set up by Sr Mary Scullion which helps homeless people restore derelict houses and make them into homes.
She also cited the outreach service run by the Hall-Mercer Project in Philadelphia where homeless people are brought in by the outreach team and given access to clothes and showers.