THE NUMBER of people sleeping rough and accessing emergency homeless services has risen 20 per cent over the past 18 months, the first increase in several years, an organisation working with the homeless has said.
Dublin Simon Community said yesterday it worked with an average of 908 people per month during the second quarter of 2010, up from 812 people per month in 2009.
It said this rise in homelessness probably reflected the impact of the recession, and called on the Government to live up to its commitment to end long-term homelessness by the end of the year.
“Most of us working in the homeless sector do not believe this goal is possible now but in fairness to the Minister for Housing, he hasn’t given up,” said Sam McGuinness, chief executive of the Dublin Simon Community.
On the eve of the publication of the Dublin Simon Community annual report, Mr McGuinness said the organisation was seeing a steady increase in the number of people looking for help.
“Last year 2,450 people accessed our services and in the first six months of 2010 we have already worked with over 1,800 people. The rise in demand is mostly evident in frontline services with people presenting to our rough-sleeper team and accessing emergency accommodation, which is up 30 per cent,” he said.
He said the number of rough sleepers its teams encounter is now between 30-40 people, up from 20-25 last year.
Dublin Simon Community’s records show its rough-sleeper team helped an average of 480 homeless people per month during the first quarter of 2010, up from 399 people per month on the same period last year.
Not all of these people were living on the streets as the team provides a range of services including needle exchange for drug-users, as well as health referrals.
Numbers presenting to its emergency accommodation team were 156 per month in the first quarter, up from 116 a year earlier. Dublin Simon Community provides a range of shelter-style emergency accommodation to people seeking a bed. It also provides treatment services for drug-users and support for people seeking long-term housing.
Mr McGuinness said the steady increase in homelessness had brought an end to a downward trend in the problem in recent years. He said more people were accessing the organisation’s emergency accommodation and it was having only limited success in moving them on to longer-term housing.
He said there was a critical need for the Government to deliver the 1,200 leases on property it had promised as part of its policy to end homelessness by the end of the year.
“We see lots of houses lying idle all over the country yet there are still hundreds of people stuck in emergency-style accommodation. We need action now to address this,” said Mr McGuinness.
“People have no home and nowhere to go and are still moving in and out of emergency shelters, some of which are of dubious standard,” he said.
'The problem is keeping a place when you manage to get it'
TEN YEARS ago Jenna was a successful student attending the prestigious Institute of Education on Leeson Street. She scored 420 points in her Leaving Certificate and had high hopes for her future.
But within months of graduating her life fell apart when she became addicted to heroin, and she ended up sleeping rough on Dublin's streets, begging from day-to-day to feed her drug habit.
"Sleeping rough is degrading. I've been spat on and pissed on by people coming out of pubs. On the streets you'll often be shocked by people's brutality," says Jenna, who is 25 now and has an eight-year-old daughter.
"My parents didn't throw me out but I couldn't stay there. I was hitching lifts and walking miles every day to score drugs. I used to beg on Ha'penny Bridge to get money," says Jenna, who bears the scars of a decade on the streets in a broad, largely toothless smile.
Jenna is in the process of trying to turn her life around. She is on a methadone treatment course and is engaging with Dublin Simon to enter a transitional housing scheme, which is aimed at helping her to get a place of her own.
"I've never cooked or cleaned in a house for myself because I've been on the streets and in and out of emergency accommodation. The problem is keeping a place when you manage to get it. It is really tough to come off the drugs. It is hard to separate [from] your lifestyle that you're used to. But this time I really want to make it work. I'm sick of it," she says.
Jenna, who suffers from depression, says she notices a big increase in the number of people on the streets and in drug use.
"A few weeks ago a girl came to this shelter but there was no room here or on the nightbus [a service that brings homeless people to emergency shelters]. She had to sleep on the street. There are also lots of Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians living on the streets, who used to have good jobs," she says.