‘A roof is not enough to end homelessness and we do not just abandon people when they get a house,” says Tony O’Riordan, chief executive of the Good Shepherd Services (GSS) in Cork city. The service helps more than 800 women and their children, who become homeless or are at risk of homelessness, every year.
Last year, 252 women, many with children, had to be turned away because the service did not have enough beds but, O'Riordan says, none of them would have been forced to sleep rough. This is because it works alongside Cork City Council and Threshold, as well as other organisations in the sector. However, the extent of it as an ongoing problem is clear.
“Our emergency shelter is constantly full and there are still waiting lists to get in, particularly for families,” he says.
At the moment, there are 18 single beds and 10 family rooms for people in need of emergency accommodation. The GSS will soon apply for planning permission to double the number of family rooms and to add six more single rooms. O’Riordan says the new family rooms will be more like apartments and will have a separate bedroom. At the moment, families are in one small room with bunk beds. The new wing will allow families to have separate accommodation that allows them to “keep up a degree of normality”.
The pressure on beds is clear from the statistics for last year – they reveal the single rooms had 85 per cent occupancy – up 12 per cent on 2013 – while the family rooms were at full occupancy last year, which is a 58 per cent increase on 2013.
Upturn
The upturn in the economy being felt in some areas has yet to resonate with those using the services, O’Riordan says.
“It is not benefiting the vast majority of people we . . . are supporting; [they] find it difficult to get a job, they have no increases in their allowances and we have a crisis in the lack of Government investment in building more houses.
“The Government had to cut and it cut and cut until eventually the more disadvantaged and socially excluded who were on the poverty line were pushed over the line and lost their homes,” he said.
“There is a chaos around homelessness that is difficult, sad and lonely and needs to be understood. You have to think about what has caused them to lose their home. There can be domestic violence, there can be family conflict, there can be addiction issues and they can have been in strained and chaotic circumstances,” O’Riordan says.
“A lot of us have families who support us in bad times, but the farther down the chain you go, the less support you have and, for women, the experience of being homeless is more difficult.”
Vulnerable
At five locations across Cork city, the GSS offers emergency accommodation, short- to medium-term accommodation for 15- to 19-year-old girls, aftercare support for women and their families to live independently and low-support long-term accommodation for vulnerable women, as well as education, training and development.
The women are aged anywhere between 22 and 60 and the average stay in the emergency accommodation can be up to eight weeks. Some use the service only once; others are repeat users.
One of the key areas in reducing the risk of homelessness is the aftercare support. “We have an aftercare team of six who are out in the community working with people and befriending them. We don’t just abandon them when they get a house, because there are other needs too.”
Not surprisingly, for many of the women, loneliness is a problem and the GSS helps them to stay involved in group work such as courses in computing or gardening.
The GSS was founded 43 years ago by Sr Colette Hickey of the Good Shepherd Sisters to help women and children. It now has an independent board and is looking to the future, specifically, at how to prevent children becoming homeless adults.
“Much more work needs to be done in the earlier stages of children’s lives to stop them repeating the errors their parents made,” O’Riordan says.
“There is no substitute for good family upbringing and support. If you never experienced a good family environment as a child, it is next to impossible to build one for your own children as an adult.
“We want to break that cycle and to do that would be a fantastic achievement.”
goodshepherdservices.ie
Ruth's recovery: 'I felt safe there, and progressed' Ruth* is a recovering alcoholic and has four children. They are in care and she sees them regularly. She first used the emergency accommodation nearly 20 years ago after being subjected to domestic violence by her partner, who is also addicted to alcohol.
“I was in in fear of my life but I realised I needed to get out,” she says. “I knew at Edel House [emergency accommodation run by the GSS] there were people like me. I felt safe there, and progressed.”
She had been with her partner for a long time and decided to return to the family home. She says this became a pattern where he would stop drinking and she would return home, then leave again.
"All my children went to school. I was drinking in the mornings and I thought I was doing all right as a mother, that I was doing everything well. I'd think they were looking healthy, but the school could see [they weren't]."
Her addiction got worse and the children were taken into care.
Ten months ago she returned to Edel House for the third time. This time it was different and she took up the offers of support.
"I am 40 and I felt I was too old for this now, that I had to do it for my children," and she got off alcohol for six months. "I really needed the services here, I could not have done it on my own."
When Ruth relapsed last October, her aftercare worker stayed in touch with her. She is back in recovery and has been off alcohol for nearly seven weeks.
"I am doing well with their support," she says. "I am doing the 40-week treatment programme and I go to AA. I feel it is great that there is a safe place to tell my story.
“I feel very comfortable in speaking with staff and feel I can trust them. I have learned to give people a chance, and feel I have gained confidence.
“They offer me a space to be me and I use that space to get away from people who I feel are not healthy for me to be around.”
*Ruth’s name has been changed
