A cold Christmas

300 people will spend the festive season on the street, many others cannot afford Christmas and the Government has failed to make any real dent in housing waiting lists, writes Maev-Ann Wren

Some 200 people will be sleeping rough on Dublin streets this Christmas and a further 100 will be out in the cold across the country, according to the Simon Communities of Ireland. This year organisations working with the homeless are particularly concerned for their health and well-being following recent forecasts of severe weather.

And a further 3,800 adults and 1,400 homeless children will spend Christmas in emergency accommodation – hostels or bed and breakfasts.

In addition, record numbers of families cannot cope with the financial strain of Christmas, according to the Society of St Vincent de Paul. The society's regional offices have received unprecedented numbers of pleas for help this year. The Dublin office received 510 calls on the Monday of Christmas week alone. In Athlone, calls were up 50 per cent on last year. And in Galway, calls in November were already running at over twice last year's level.

Callers to the St Vincent de Paul were frequently parents asking "can you help us provide Christmas for our children?", according to Audry Deane, national social policy officer with the society. Others were having difficulty meeting mortgage payments. One woman called when her gas was cut off because her ex-partner had not paid the bill.

The society passes on all requests for help to its local "conferences" or groups of volunteers, who visit families and "respond as best they can". The society depends largely on charitable donations and church gate collections to pay bills and supply necessities and Christmas gifts for people in need.

In an attempt to reduce the number of people sleeping on the streets in Cork this Christmas, the Cork Simon Community opened a cold weather shelter to accommodate 18 people during Christmas week. The shelter is staffed entirely by volunteers and opens between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. The Simon Communities around the state still go on their traditional soup runs to people sleeping rough.

A survey published in March 2004 discovered 237 people sleeping rough in Dublin city centre on any given night. The Homeless Agency co-ordinated the survey which was carried out by Focus Ireland, the Dublin Simon Community and Merchant's Quay Ireland along with Dublin City Council and other homeless services.

The last official count of people who were homeless conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Homeless Agency in 2002 found that 312 people were sleeping rough in the Greater Dublin Area. The 2004 survey did not include people sleeping rough in the suburbs.

Noeleen Hartigan, social policy and research co-ordinator with the Simon Communities of Ireland, commented that while "a lot of money has been spent on homelessness", almost half the national budget is devoted to placing people in bed and breakfast accommodation.

"We are doing well in terms of moving people off the streets. Visible homelessness has reduced. But people are languishing in emergency accommodation and hostels. Unless we get them housed, we will have an explosion of homelessness again because emergency beds are full."

Those who remain sleeping rough include young people who are afraid to go to available accommodation, partners who cannot get accommodation together and people with multiple problems like a combination of mental illness and addiction whom "services have failed", according to Noeleen Hartigan. In many parts of the country, there is no emergency accommodation available.

Nearly two thirds of children leaving Health Board care and one third of those leaving special schools for young offenders experience homelessness within their first two years of leaving care, according to a study commissioned by Focus Ireland and published in 2000.

Agencies for the homeless argue that the Government must at least double its social housing programme. "Budget 2005 has done nothing to offer hope to the 5,581 men, women and children currently living in homeless accommodation of ever moving into their own home", the Simon Communities have commented.

There were 48,000 households on housing waiting lists at the last official count in 2002: this means there are about 140,000 men, women and children who are homeless.

Declan Jones of Focus Ireland pointed out earlier this year "it's vital to remember that a shocking 85 per cent of people on the housing waiting lists have an annual income of less than €15,000 (67 per cent of them less than €10,000). They will never be able to afford to buy even the most 'affordable' house in their current situation."

Before the Budget there was consensus among voluntary organisations that a commitment to 10,000 new housing units in 2005 was necessary to make an impact on the housing waiting lists. The Simon Communities commented after the Budget "the Government predicts that it will deliver 5,500 new local authority starts in the New Year. While above recent averages, this is still far behind government targets, let alone what is actually needed."

"The six month eligibility rule for rent supplement has not been reversed. Instead, Minister Brennan has stated that those who become ill or unemployed or are assessed by a local authority as having housing need will not be disadvantaged. Until the new guidance notes for Community Welfare Officers are published, it will not be clear what impact they will have. Minister Cowen said that the budget was 'for the Irish people as a whole' but it seems that those who were homeless were not on the list."