An ambitious £180 million plan which envisages the elimination of long-term homelessness and rough sleeping in Dublin city and county was announced yesterday by the Taoiseach.
The plan's vision is that by 2010 long-term homelessness and the need for people to sleep rough will be eliminated.
It includes a public-awareness campaign, 1,500 long-term housing units, a 24-hour freephone advice and information service and the establishment of a new Homeless Agency to lead its implementation.
"Shaping the Future - An Action Plan on Homelessness in Dublin" covers Dublin's four local authority areas and will operate until 2003. It relates to the needs of homeless adults; the needs of homeless young people are to be addressed in a separate plan to be drawn up by the Eastern Regional Health Authority.
It will establish a "radical new approach" to the delivery of services to the homeless "based on the principle of continuum of care to ensure that all the needs of people who are homeless are met in an integrated way and in a way that ensures they move from homelessness into long-term housing."
Some 75 per cent of the State's homeless people are in the Dublin area, with 95 per cent of these in Dublin city. The plan says 1,400 people and households use emergency accommodation, with a further 200 sleeping rough.
Speaking at the presentation of the plan in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, Mr Ahern described it as "the capital's first ever comprehensive blueprint for the elimination of homelessness". Past policy on homelessness was driven by "short-term measures, an overwhelming emphasis on emergency accommodation and an over-reliance on insecure and inadequate funding", he said.
An integrated delivery system will assist homeless people to progress to long-term housing. "It will do this through a partnership approach," he added, "so that agencies providing services for people who are homeless will work together under the leadership of the Homeless Agency to deliver better results." The plan emphasises consistent quality standards, early intervention and preventive measures and addressing gaps in services for groups such as women and young people. It includes an additional 240 emergency hostel and refuge places, emergency accommodation for substance abusers aged between 16 and 21 and 200 extra units of transitional housing.
An additional 1,500 long-term housing units will be provided through the voluntary, public and private sectors.
It also includes a detailed strategy to reduce by two-thirds by 2003 the estimated 275 people sleeping rough in Dublin. This will be done by providing specialist emergency and other accommodation, making existing accommodation more responsive to the needs of people who sleep rough and improving street outreach services.
The plan acknowledges that this will not be achieved in its three-year time-frame, but says its measures will lay the ground for its achievement, to be built on in subsequent plans.
The Homeless Agency will lead the implementation of the plan and will be headed by Ms Mary Higgins. She said the plan's 2010 target was realistic.
"We have a small homeless population and it's not an insoluble problem by any means. It's persistent because we have had reactive and short-term measures whereas this is broad and long term," she said.