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Updated 1.20pm
EVERY EMERGENCY BED for people without shelter in Dublin city was full on Tuesday night.
On the same night, a homeless man who had been sleeping rough was found unconscious outside a Superdry store close to Grafton Street in the south inner city.
He was later pronounced dead. Foul play is not suspected in his death.
TheJournal.ie understands that the man – who has been named locally as Stephen “Jack” Watson – did not attempt to access an emergency bed on Tuesday. Watson – who was aged in his 50s – was, however, known to homelessness services and had been engaging with different bodies in the city since October 2015.
According to the Dublin Regional Homelessness Executive – which manages homelessness services across the four Dublin local authorities – a number of different organisations had attempted to help him over the past two years.
Watson was originally from Ireland but had spent time in Australia.
His death comes as the government faces mounting pressure to deal with growing homelessness and the housing crisis.
‘[We're] doing everything we can’
In a statement this afternoon, Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy expressed his condolences to the families of Watson and the homeless woman who died in a separate instance on the same day, saying that “it’s a very difficult time for those involved”.
“The unprecedented levels of homelessness that we are witnessing is totally unacceptable,” he said.
The government and my department, working with the local authorities, voluntary sector and other stakeholders, are doing everything we can – but I know we need to do more.
Murphy said that he would be holding an emergency housing summit next week in the Custom House with each of the 31 local authorities’ chief executives and the housing department’s senior management.
They would “explore additional measures to help and to house families and individuals currently in emergency accommodation and accessing emergency state supports”, Murphy said.
‘Not enough beds’
Charity officials and people working within homelessness say that emergency beds are full almost every night in Dublin city.
That’s close to 3,300 adult emergency beds in the city that are occupied, as homelessness services struggle to keep up with the rising numbers.
With the beds full and the number of homeless people rising consistently every month for the past number of years, there has been an increase of people sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin.
The latest official count of people sleeping rough (on the streets) across Dublin took place in April. It found 138 people sleeping outside in the city.
However, unofficial counts from charities and community groups have reported a recent spike in those figures. Community organisation Inner City Helping Homeless said it recorded over 200 engagements just last week.
On the back of this development, there have been calls for the DRHE to make more beds available.
“It’s high time now that the Housing Minister [Eoghan Murphy] takes emergency measures and opens more beds,” said ICHH director Anthony Flynn.
There are beds lying empty in this city while there are people dying on the streets.
Flynn was referring to emergency beds on Wolfe Tone Quay which were opened last year for use during severe weather.
Flynn said that there are 44 beds at this facility while a DRHE spokesperson said there are 20.
In response to yesterday’s death and the rising number of rough sleepers, the DRHE said it was working to bring more beds on stream.
“The DRHE is currently working to provide a further 200 emergency accommodation beds to ensure that there is sufficient capacity,” a spokesperson said.
Dismay
Homelessness campaigners and people working within the area expressed dismay yesterday over the death of Watson.
Longtime campaigner Fr Peter McVerry told TheJournal.ie that urgent action was needed from government in order to address the spiralling homelessness crisis.
“I think every death is a tragedy,” said McVerry.
“The fact that someone dies on the street rather than a hostel is not that significant.
“It’s tragic that it happens on the street where there’s nobody there to check on them, call an ambulance or even give them comfort in their dying.
Your life should not be cut short just because you don’t have somewhere to live. It is just a disgrace that we have homeless people in this country.
The death – along with the tragic death of a young homeless mother this week – will put further pressure on government to address the complex housing and homelessness crisis.
Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has come under strong pressure since he took office in June, with charities and workers in the field saying that numbers are getting out of control.
Latest figures for June show that there were 5,046 homeless adults in state-funded emergency accommodation, as well as 2,895 children. However, officials say that the number of actual homeless people in the country is likely much higher.
A Housing Summit will be held next week in Dublin with each of the country’s 31 local authority chief executives to try to finalise solutions aimed at addressing the crisis.
ICHH has called for a national emergency to be declared on homelessness. Charities like Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust have called for increased protections for private tenants and urgent social housing building to take place.
“We need to ensure that the revised Rebuilding Ireland strategy places a major emphasis on the need to provide a large public housing programme that allows us to rapidly re-house those in homelessness as quickly as possible,” said PMV Trust CEO Pat Doyle.
With reporting from Sean Murray
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there are a lot of people out there willing to help. just don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask.
Best thing you can do is talk. It will be hard but by god does it get easier
Or write it down to try to make sense out of it but talking works…
Some good news for men for a change. Would do no harm to add the text number in the list of help numbers instead of being stuck in the article. Fair play to Console. At least some group seems to be concerned about men.
There need’s to be a place to go like for DVAM. So glad that the fellas are using it and for talking. Huge step. Proud of you all.
I think that is due to stress, how people treat each other, how relationships are suppose to develop according to what people are told, the westernisation of how a man should be a certain way to act to show that he is a man. That the only way to be a man is sex the whole time with strange women, aggression, fighting, treating others with contempt, being hard and nasty as well as ready to start a fight with anyone…
This nonsense is coming from U.S. television telling men that they are not men unless they are total b….ds.
People are too busy chasing images of what they should be from pop culture, TV and the media and it has become a race to be popular by doing what others tell them in order to be popular. In order to be part of a consumerised society and at its core is bullying and greed.
@ Michael Sands. So what way should a man be then?
Rossa, Be himself and not try to be like others, some say to find what you do not like in your life to get an idea to find out what you do like or want in your life then.
Too many are told what will make them happy rather than trying to find this out for themselves. I think what makes people happy is finding their life’s purpose as people are social, they need to be amongst people and not being on FB etc but with people. Secondly, to feel that they have done something meaningful with their time as in work, hobbies etc instead of playing games or watching TV, THAT THERE IS SOMETHING TO SHOW FOR THE TIME THEY USED.
I think if it is gardening, hunting like fishing etc or being creative as in making things that this will make people happier. I think being busy and creative is the best medicine as it gets people from being focused on themselves and their problems and focused onto something different.
To be a man is to be masculine and to be enjoying who you are and what you can do and not to be led about like a dog on a leash by anyone or anything. So what do you think a man should be Rossa?
@ Michael. Unfortunately I am so un- pc in my thinking that I couldn’t possibly share my views on a public forum with my name attached. Primarily we are fathers, brothers and providers and for those of us gifted with natural ability or even inherited fortune we should expect more.
The key to life is to do onto others as you would like done onto you, that is a good start I suppose?
In the case of bullying talking about it can make it worse as bullies who get caught bullying try to control what was said about them by denying it and putting all the blame on their victim from being stupid, evil, an object of fun to being a bully themselves and accusing that person of doing the things the bullies did themselves in order to pass the blame. So you have to be careful who you tell as some bullies are sociopaths and they have friends…
They try to make light out of bullying and control the damage sometimes in order to keep on bullying. The motivation of bullies is control over their victim and their environment, if they can’t effect their victim then they try to control what others think of their victim because control over another person is control for them. If they can’t control their victim then they can control people around that victim, so they use others to satisfy their need for control but that is what sociopaths do. So many who are in such despair are victims of others or circumstances beyond them and that means they feel they have lost control and have become so focused in on their problems that in fact then they are their worst enemy then because they do not see the wider fuller picture as in those who love them, respect them or who like them. They forget or can’t see the options in front of them and they get into dark ways of thinking and feeling because they can’t step back and that is what bullies do to. Bullies are not happy unless they lower someone’s self esteem lower than their own as they live in slurry and try to grab people and drown them in the same slurry that they live in and their victims can’t see then that what others do and think says more about those saying or doing these things than it does about the victim as what people say and do is who and what they are and has nothing to do with facts or the truth but control and bitterness.
I think bullying in society is getting worse and it has to do with people who are angry, envious, wanting to be accepted by a group, who do not want to be bullied themselves so they join in on bullying. a way to proves ones own masculinity to others in order to feel that their manhood isn’t the size of a peanut and transferring anger in one part of their lives into another part by bullying.
I think the best way to defeat suicide is to let people know that they are loved and that their problems are bigger in their head than they are in reality as they can do and be whoever they want as problems are always temporary and it is better to live life and leave the bullies or problem when they live and that is normally in the cesspool that is who they are.
Good that people are reaching out but hoping they get the right support and information when they do.
Time that doctors and pharma companies stop lying to the public and misinformation people. The “chemical imbalance” theory is a myth. People get depressed for various reasons.
The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Harvard Professor Irving Kirsch ~
http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-New-Drugs-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006
Psychiatrist Dr Joanna Moncrieff – The Myth of the Chemical Cure: The Politics of Psychiatric Drug Treatment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV1S5zw096U
{ Do not stop or change prescribed psychoactive drugs without talking to a good doctor, due to the dangers of withdrawal }
Something that helps is ASIST training (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) ~
http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/Mental_Health_Services/NOSP/Training/
http://www.yourmentalhealth.ie/Get-involved/News-events/Events/ ( Under select Period put the next 6 months )
We deserve informed consent about these mind altering drugs. According to medical journalist Robert Whitaker, in his book “Anatomy of an Epidemic”, anti-depressants can turn mild/moderate depression into a chronic, long term condition.
My experience on these drugs, which I unwittingly took for anxiety ~
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