THE NUMBER of new people sleeping rough in Dublin is increasing and the number of homeless drug-users has trebled in the last four months, according to the chief executive of the Dublin Simon Community Sam McGuinness.
Speaking at the charity’s 40th anniversary celebration at the weekend, he said the growing homeless population was a young one, with over 50 per cent being under the age of 35.
Global anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof said his experiences as a soup-run volunteer in his teens “informed” much of his campaigning charity work since.
Mr McGuinness said out-reach workers were seeing more people on the streets wanting to access emergency accommodation.
“The number of people accessing our needle-exchange has increased in the last number of months. I’d say numbers have trebled since June. In our Harcourt Street hostel we are meeting a worrying number of people who are ‘first-time’ homeless.
“It’s still about 20 per cent women and 80 per cent men, and I’d say about 50 per cent are under the age of 35.
“I haven’t seen a sharp edge to it but I’d say it’s a trickle now that may just be the start.”
Funding was unlikely to increase, he said.
“We have faced cuts in recent years. Our funding breakdown is about one-third from the Department of the Environment, one-third from the HSE and one-third from donations.
“Individual donations from members of the public have been very supportive but the biggest fall-off has been from business, which don’t have the budgets at the moment. We need companies to encourage their staff to get involved in fundraising events.
“These are worrying times and the big challenge lies ahead as we go into the winter.”
Geldof told how he had volunteered for about six months with Dublin Simon as a teenager in 1970. He described some of the homeless people then and how “desperate and lonely” their lives were, and how their treatment by some people was “beyond humanity”. Simple acts of kindness to them, like giving them a hot cup of soup and listening to them, helped restore humanity.
“I learnt a lot from Simon, about the practicality of help, the solace of company. ‘You need food? No problem? You need a hand? It’s okay’. I am very grateful. You made my life much more exciting, more focused. I did understand we would still be doing it in 2009 because the reasons for poverty are complex; they are economic and they are political.
“I greatly fear you are continuing your work in a time of existential economic crisis. I had no idea how betrayed, how angry, how bewildered this country feels. It is bad in London but it is awful here. People are going to be wiped out here. This crisis will pass but in its passing people will be hurt beyond measure.”
