THE TERM “destitution” has re-entered the vocabulary of people working in homeless services, Simon Communities of Ireland said yesterday.
Chairman Denis Doherty warned that more people than ever before were now in danger of becoming homeless because of the recession.
Carol O'Brien of Simon Community Northern Ireland said the term "destitution" harked back to another era, the era of poverty described in Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashesmemoir. But she was struck by how often she had heard the word from colleagues and others in the past 12 to 18 months.
“Destitution, unfortunately, is coming and creeping through society in an insidious way,” she said.
“You’d see it in terms of migrant workers who have lost jobs and have no access to State benefits. You’d see it in young people who have left home but are too young to access State benefits or in people who have no permanent address, and so cannot claim State benefits,” she said.
She recalled one man who came to a Simon shelter late one night and he had nothing but the clothes he was wearing. “Destitution is a strong word but it is being used more and more and I think we often see trends emerging before mainstream society does.”
Mr Doherty said more people would become homeless due to the recession, despite the Government’s commitment to end long-term homelessness by 2010.
“The Simon communities around the country are currently operating at capacity and we are bracing ourselves for challenging times ahead,” he said.
They were speaking as Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) announced that it would donate €842,355 to the Simon communities of Ireland this year through a novel workplace safety initiative.
For every accident-free three months achieved at any CRH workplace on the island of Ireland, a sum of money is donated to the Simon Community operating in that area, up to a maximum of €1 million over the course of the year. Bonus payments are made if locations have a full accident-free year.
Simon communities all over the State and in Northern Ireland have benefited from the safety challenge to date. This year’s donation is an increase of more than €65,300 on last year’s sum, due to fewer on-site accidents.
Simon Communities of Ireland chairman Denis Doherty said it was “truly remarkable” what had been achieved with the money donated by CRH since 2007.
Some of the funds donated last year helped to run the Dublin Simon emergency shelter on Harcourt Street; to open the Midlands Simon Community’s first emergency service; and to provide more than 24,000 hot meals to people in Cork. Mr Doherty said the new emergency service in the midlands had been “very busy” and this indicated that there was much need that had not been identified.
Jim Farrell of CRH said providing shelter was the “bread and butter” of CRH’s business so it was appropriate that they supported a charity that tackled homelessness.
