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THE MIDLANDS BRANCH of the Simon Community is being forced to turn people away from their emergency accommodation centres every week as a result of a surge in demand.
CEO of Midlands Simon Tony O’Riordan says they’ve experienced a surge in demand for services this year.
Stats from the organisation show there were 323 people seeking help from the charity in the first six months of the year. That compares with a figure of 431 for the entire of 2013.
“If that trend was to go on until the end of the year we’ll have seen a 30 per cent increase compared to 2013,” according to O’Riordan.
The charity runs 12 emergency beds across counties Laois, Offaly and Westmeath. In Westmeath, it’s the only service providing emergency accommodation to single males.
“That’s just one part of what we do.
Our focus is on getting people out of emergency accommodation and into homes of their own.
Anyone the charity is unable to facilitate in its overnight centres is referred back to the relevant town or county council, says O’Riordan. There were five such cases in just one week last month.
The Midlands region only receives 1.5 per cent of the Goverment spend on homelessness, so what’s really difficult is that we’re dealing with very scarce resources.
Invisible homelessness
The problem might not be as visible in the region as it is in Dublin or the other large urban centres, O’Riordan says — as people sleeping in their cars or on the floors of friends’ houses aren’t appearing in any official stats.
The fact that our 12 emergency beds are full through the year is certainly an indicator of the extent of the problem.
An official review of homeless services carried out three years ago found that funding to tackle the issue in the Midlands region was well below the State average in absolute terms, on a per capita scale and the basis of the amount spent on each service user.
“It also found that services in the Midlands provide very cost effective services, and are configured in the right way in terms of attaining long term outcomes for people.
It’s not just about people being taken off the street. They’re also being supported into homes of their own.
Midlands Simon (File pic)
A Midlands Simon service-user who spoke to TheJournal.ie at an apartment in the region said he found it hard to express how how much the charity had helped him in recent years.
The 30-year-old man, who preferred not to give his name, said he had been battling depression and was experiencing other problems in the town he had been living in before seeking the charity’s help.
If it wasn’t for them I honestly think I’d be dead right now. Before Simon helped be I was in a very bad state. I couldn’t live independently.
Social housing
On a national level, the Simon Communities in Ireland have called on the Government to ring-fence a proportion of all social housing allocations in the country for people moving out of homelessness as part of next week’s Budget.
Environment Minister Alan Kelly announced the coalition’s new plan for social housing last week, which will force developers to provide up to 10 per cent of their housing units for social housing, and impose fines for leaving a site vacant.
The Government is also expected to introduce a new mechanism for funding the provision of such housing in the Budget, and Kelly said the issue would be “top of the agenda” in Tuesday’s package of announcements.
OK,
Review of an Bórd Pleanála and DCC voting on the minimum size for a habitable shoebox.
Could somebody tell Noonan that the country needs homes, not housing.
What’s worse Paul, the new updated shoeboxes they are going to build will cost circa €45k each.
Noonan doesn’t care Paul he has a gold caret pension no matter what….
€45.5k per house? This won’t happen.
It’s not as simple as 45k each, the 500m will build a few, these get sold for a profit which in turn builds more. They can also use it to or leverage more money.
Yes, with current minimum standards and regulations; I’m very curious if this is achievable.
Leverage above 2 to 1 in a depressed economy is risky enough, the figures don’t add up. Can’t be throwing half a billion of our cash around willy nilly. Starting to look like a feeding frenzy around here.
homes not dog boxes.What sort of a house could be built for 45.000 euros. are there any of these fools proposing such dog boxes.With their big pensions and expenses.GET A GRIP.What about all the houses been held by NAMA give these to the county and city councils for houseing.Some have been idle for years.or is it all money and to hell with the homeless
I can only imagine the state of these when they’re finished, at 45k a piece I know I wouldn’t want to be living in one. That being said I suppose its better than a park bench if you have no other option/motivation.
Is the Irish government investment arm giving loans to irish developers! With some US cover fund of course, but is that the gist of it? Why can’t they borrow off the banks that we bailed out.
Irish banks have lent too much to Irish developers in general already. The money they have to lend can go to for small business and personal loads and home loans and some for some mortgages.
If you read the report produced by the ISIF you will see that the money is going mostly towards the construction of 3 and 4 bed units, which are the units that are badly needed to get families out shoe box apartments and flats all across the country. This is good news
Well said David. The usual suspects in here bemoaning and belittling any good news with nothing tangible to offer themselves except finger pointing. We need more homes in the right locations. The demand is there.
A link to the report would help! I just hope they’re 3 bed apartments rather than more suburban low rise sprawl into our agriculturally productive countryside.
We have way more 3 bed houses than we need in this country. They are under used is the problem. In order to free them up we need smaller properties as options for singles, couples without kids and property for the elderly.
Vast housing estates close to the major employment,schools etc. are occupied by 1 to 2 people. There should be incentives to get them in more suitable housing within these estates.
My mother lives in a 5 bed house on her own. She doesn’t want to leave the area and her neighbours are all in a similar situation.
I would cautiously welcome such news – but it comes way too late – initiatives like this were badly needed when the ordure first hit the airconditioning.
45k per house paying staff an ave wage of 19k per year is 36k per year on the staff. That leaves 9k left for materials or the build. I’m probably missing something here? The sale of these houses would need to be over 100k each to generate a return of 1.1b. I’m sure it will be more. The cost of the shoeboxes I meant.
have your say