ANALYSISThe Government's new strategy is being introduced against a backdrop of cutbacks, writes Carl O'Brien
HOW DO YOU measure the distance between high-minded rhetoric and crushing reality? In the case of the Government's ambitious new strategy on tackling homelessness, the gap is so wide that it's impossible to know where to begin.
The new blueprint certainly looks impressive on paper. The Way Home, A Strategy to Address Adult Homelessness in Ireland 2008-2013 pushes all the right buttons.
It talks about shifting the emphasis on providing emergency beds for homeless people to longer-term accommodation and independent living; eliminating the need to sleep rough within two years; eradicating long-term homelessness; and statutory obligation on local authorities to develop homeless action plans.
All in all the "vision thing" features prominently in the new four-year plan. "We have a clear vision for the future," the Minister with responsibility for housing, Michael Finneran said with pride yesterday. "A vision where the occurrence of homelessness is minimised and where it does arise, nobody will have to sleep rough or remain longer than six months in emergency accommodation."
The reality is that the new plan is being introduced against a backdrop of spending cutbacks which are already severely compromising the delivery of a range of homeless services.
For example, a freeze on funding by the Health Service Executive means that money available for support services - such as meeting the needs of people with mental health or drink and drug problems - has remained static at last year's level.
The lack of this support is vital. Take the example of young homeless people. An incredible two thirds of those leaving State care are likely to have experienced homelessness within two years of leaving care.
The problem lies in the fact that vulnerable young people fall off a cliff-face at the age of 18, once the statutory obligation of health authorities to provide for the well-being of young people ends. After care services are patchy or in some cases non-existent.
Funding shortages are also affecting the supply of emergency beds available for homeless people. The strategy talks, rightly, about the need to shift the emphasis away from emergency beds towards longer-term accommodation options.
Yet, the pressures on emergency accommodation persist. In Cork, for example, staff at the Simon Community are warning of a funding crisis and say they have had no choice but to turn 500 people away from their emergency shelters this year. Services in Dublin also report having to turn homeless people away from their centres on a regular basis.
What will be crucial to the realisation of this new strategy is the political will to fund it and ensure that it does not become a soft touch for future spending cutback over the next four years.
The signs, though, are hardly encouraging. It speaks volumes that the first areas in health to feel the spending axe this year are those which affect the most marginalised: homeless, mental health and disability services.
There is also the issue of whether the strategy unveiled yesterday - if properly resourced - has the potential to deliver on its promises. That, too, is a question shrouded in doubt.
The basis for the new strategy is a review by independent consultants, Fitzpatrick Associates, which issued detailed recommendations on what should be contained in the new blueprint.
The review argued for a new strategy with clearly defined objectives, actions, projected outcomes, timescales for delivery and an appropriate monitoring mechanism to track progress.
There is no sign of this in the strategy. Bizarrely, an implementation plan for the blueprint is not expected until at least December of this year.
The independent review also called for a co-ordinated funding mechanism for the disbursement of capital and current accommodation and care-related costs. Again, there is are no specific commitments in this regard.
There have been some encouraging signs of progress in more recent times. The establishment of the Government Agency has helped to ensure voluntary organisations and Government agencies are working strategically with one another. There has been, overall, an increase in funding in this area and a sense that there is a some political interest in helping to try to prevent homelessness.
But our problem in the past has been a system which simply manages our homeless problem rather than actively intervening and ensuring people don't fall into homelessness.
The pathways to homelessness are as perilous as ever: young people leaving care; patients being discharged from psychiatric hospitals; men leaving prison.
Certainly, we now have some vision on how to help to intervene in the lives of the most vulnerable and free them from an endless cycle of crisis.
But at this stage, given spending cutbacks, lack of political will and a flawed implementation plan, there is nothing to suggest the vision will amount to much more than good intentions.
• Carl O'Brien is Social Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times