Failure to end long-term homelessness 'a disgrace'

THE GOVERNMENT’S failure to keep its promise to end long-term homelessness is “appalling, disgraceful and unforgivable”, Focus Ireland founder Sr Stanislaus Kennedy has said.

She said she was “very, very angry” that successive governments had not moved to end homelessness during the boom years, and was allowing the crises to continue when there were now so many empty properties.

“Disgrace. There’s no other word for it. They had the money, they had the resources, they had people like us reminding them all the time. They failed. Now there are 300,000 houses lying empty and while not all would be suitable,many would be. It’s an absolute disgrace.”

In 1991 there were 2,700 people homeless. Despite the increase in prosperity in the succeeding years, that figure has risen to almost 5,000. The Government had made a commitment to end long-term homelessness by the end of this year, but it was clear they would be reneging on that promise, Sr Stanislaus said.

“To achieve this target in Dublin alone 1,200 homes have to be made available, do you know how many of them have been made available? Not one.”

There had been an improvement in the supply of emergency accommodation, she said but people were becoming “trapped” in emergency accommodation when they should be moving on to proper housing.

“Homelessness is only a stage in peoples’ lives that can happen to anyone, but when it continues on for a prolonged period it becomes a state.”

Sr Stanislaus was speaking yesterday to mark the 25th anniversary of Focus Ireland. The charity opened its coffee shop, advice and information centre in Temple Bar in Dublin in September 1985 as a direct response to the lack of services for people who were homeless in the city at that time.

Sr Stanislaus has returned to work in the coffee shop in response to the deepening crises. She said she wanted to remain in touch with the people who used Focus Ireland’s services and said she had a duty to them to call on the Government to keep its promises.

“All I’m asking is that they honour their commitments to provide suitable appropriate accommodation, to give dignity and hope to people that they can move on again from homelessness.”

Focus Ireland will this week launch a new public awareness campaign to highlight the different aspects of homelessness, from rough sleeping to living in emergency accommodation.

Posters for the campaign feature Sr Stanislaus’s grand nephew Thomas Dowling, who has been recently working as a volunteer with Focus Ireland, pictured as a young homeless man.