Sir, – Pádraig Ó hUiginn (December 12th) suggests the Army collect people sleeping rough and bring them to a facility for sheltered accommodation.
It is understandable and justifiable that there is widespread concern and disappointment regarding the prevalence of homelessness in Dublin, however it is equally important that we must stay the course and implement current Government policy which is to eliminate long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough.
This will only be achieved if we can achieve better preventative approaches to homelessness and most critically, provide housing with support. Both statutory and voluntary services in the Dublin Homeless Consultative Forum are united in their support for this objective and also accept that where homelessness cannot be achieved, we must provide sufficient emergency capacity with support so as to avoid the need to sleep rough.
We need to avoid any retrograde step that steers us off course from a “housing with care and support” approach to resolve homelessness, that is, taking a housing-led approach.
In 2012, 879 people moved away from homelessness into independent living with support as required and we envisage the same level of movement out of homelessness for 2013.
It is very important to consider the following in terms of the level of service provided for those rough sleeping in the Dublin region:
1. A dedicated outreach team engages with those rough sleeping across the Dublin region on a daily basis to try to ensure they are accessing emergency accommodation and they are linked in with homeless services to ensure they get the health, accommodation and care supports they need.
2. The Dublin local authorities have increased temporary accommodation capacity to meet the step-up in demand that is being experienced. There are approximately 1,500 beds provided on a nightly basis. Plans are in place to increase emergency accommodation in the immediate period.
3. A freephone 1800 707 707 is available for those who are rough sleeping to contact for access to emergency accommodation on a daily basis.
4. The annual Cold Weather Initiative is in place since November 1st, and will run until the end of March. It provides an emergency humanitarian response to the needs of those who may be sleeping rough during cold weather.
5. The Housing First Demonstration Project is accommodating a number of people in tenancies in the Dublin region. These people have extensive rough sleeping and homeless histories and have significant support needs.
Homelessness will not be resolved unless there is a significant step-up in access to affordable and quality housing and increased provision of support to assist people in maintaining their own home. It is crucially important that financial resources are maintained in 2014, to ensure that the sector can continue to work to reduce the need to sleep rough and address homelessness through housing with support. – Yours, etc,
CATHAL MORGAN,
Director,
Dublin Region Homeless
Executive,
Wood Quay, Dublin 8,