Cork charity says Covid 19 reinforces need to house the homeless

The experience of those living on the streets during the Covid 19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of people having their own homes, according to a leading homeless charity.

The Cork Simon Community published its 2019 annual report on Friday and its director, Dermot Kavanagh said the pandemic had laid bare the limitations of emergency shelters or institutional homes.

While the impact of the pandemic is not reflected in the annual report, Mr Kavanagh said the experience of his organisation this year was that home is where people are safest and can thrive.

“Our experience of the pandemic this year has emphasised our need as a society to move to a situation where we provide care to people in their own homes wherever possible rather than in emergency shelters or institutional homes.”

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Mr Kavanagh said his organisation’s aim was to provide homes and he asked the Government to take all measures necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of affordable homes.

According to their annual report, last year Cork Simon helped 52 people into secure, affordable, independent and supported housing, a 21 per cent increase on the 2018 figure.

It said all 52 people continue to be supported by the charity to rebuild their lives.

Mr Kavanagh said Cork Simon supported 1,088 men and women in 2019 with record numbers turning to the community’s homeless emergency support services for shelter care and support.

The number of people long-term in its emergency accommodation had increased by 19 per cent per cent, he said.

Mr Kavanagh said Cork Simon made a positive impact on hundreds of people’s journey out of homelessness as it has supported 228 people back into education, training and employment while some 68 people were supported into addiction treatment and aftercare services.

“One quarter of those who were long-term homeless were housed by the end of 2019 and we felt that we’d made a lot of progress - we knew we had a lot more work to do but we had no idea what was going to hit us this year,” said Mr Kavanagh.

He said the pandemic forced the charity to re-orientate how they run their services and said this contributed to only “ a handful of people that we’re supporting actually contracted coronavirus, and all recovered well,” he added.

Mr Kavanagh praised both Cork City Council and the HSE for their support during the pandemic, saying the council made additional emergency accommodation available while the HSE provided rapid testing and off-site isolation facilities.

“These measures, together with the Government’s moratorium on rent increases and evictions, means that our collective efforts are keeping people as safe and protected as possible during this pandemic,” he said.