Conference told voluntary bodies must not get too bureaucratic

Voluntary organisations need to guard against becoming too big and bureaucratic, the director of the Homeless Agency has warned.

Ms Mary Higgins said voluntary agencies should be at the "cutting edge, identifying issues and problems", dealing with them and then "moving on".

However, instead of remaining innovative, they tended to become organisations "the size of a health board", and to stop being innovative.

They become bureaucratic "instead of being mean and lean".

Ms Higgins was speaking at the national conference of the Simon Communities of Ireland.

In a debate on "value-for-money in addressing homelessness and housing exclusion", she asked what value did the voluntary sector add?

"The emphasis has to be on putting ourselves out of business," she said, adding that it was "much more expensive to keep somebody homeless than keeping them in the community".

The Homeless Agency is responsible for the planning, co-ordination and delivery of services to people who are homeless in the Dublin area in partnership with voluntary and statutory groups.

Mr Jack O'Connor, general president of SIPTU, told the conference that social equity was economically viable, but there were 48,000

households on the housing waiting list, social housing building was 33 per cent

behind schedule, and it was "deplorable" that

homelessness had to be addressed by people "rattling boxes" in fundraising.

However, Ms Higgins said that was "not a fair representation of of the State funding". She said that 86 per cent of funding for homelessness was provided by the State, and that when fundraising the organisations should reflect

the reality of the situation,

not that they were collecting for "sleeping bags and blankets".

However, Ms Collette Kelleher, of Cork Simon Community, said that despite a Government commitment of €2 million for Cork Simon's projects this

year, the initial allocation offered was €800,000 - a huge shortfall - and they would have to fundraise to keep pace.

The Department of the Environment provides €50 million annually for homelessness, and the Department of Health €12 million through the health boards.

According to the Simon Community, more than half of the €50 million goes in funding for B&B accommodation.