Sir, – The suggestion that the increase in rough sleeping is directly linked to the reconfiguration of homeless services is without merit (Respond Housing Association’s letter, November 28th), as the number one challenge to resolving homelessness is to provide housing with support.
Significant improvements have been achieved through the process of reconfiguration of homeless services whereby voluntary and statutory agencies have made enormous efforts in changing the way services are delivered. For example, we now have 24-hour supported temporary accommodation and have also been able to localise homeless services across Dublin, which is a far cry from the over-concentration of homeless services in Dublin’s city centre.
The job is far from complete, as we can only achieve our aim of eliminating the need to sleep rough and long-term homelessness if we take strong action on “housing people” with supports and make the prevention of homelessness a priority also.
The increase in rough sleeping is a serious concern for all homeless services and one which is being addressed on a daily basis with statutory and voluntary homeless service providers despite the many challenges. To state that it appears that there are more people sleeping rough than at any other time in the past 10 years is without evidence.
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan recently announced measures which set out the focus for 2012 and this is to be welcomed. That is, we need to move away from the over-reliance on emergency accommodation provision to a Housing First policy where more permanent accommodation can be achieved through policy measures: 1. Making better use of the existing available accommodation units in the local authorities and in the voluntary sector. 2. Additional social housing provision through acquisitions and remedial works/upgrading of vacant local authority housing and a leasing programme. 3. Discussions with Nama about the possibility of securing properties without significant State funding. 4. Targeted use of the Rental Accommodation Scheme. 5. Enhanced role of the private rental sector. 6. Better co-ordination with the voluntary and co-operative housing sector. – Yours, etc,