Council pushes ahead with plans to regulate soup runs

Dublin Region Homeless Executive staff met with representatives from soup runs on Tuesday, to talk about plans for bylaws to regulate on-street homeless services.

Council officials and councillors have talked for more than six months about bringing in a permit system for these services.

Last July, council officials said in a presentation to councillors that regulation would ensure that legal standards are met and that efforts are better coordinated.

“It is acknowledged that these groups are altruistic and want to help vulnerable people in the community,” says the presentation. “These bylaws do not undermine that but will underpin it through a regulatory framework.”

To get a permit, a group would need to be a registered charity and be compliant with food-safety regulations.

About 25 to 40 voluntary groups regularly hand out food, water, tents and sleeping bags on the streets of Dublin. Some are ad-hoc voluntary groups, others are registered charities, and some say they are in the process of registering as charities.

Many on-street homeless services accept that regulation may be needed. But it can be challenging and time-consuming to register as a charity, they also say.

“I get why they are doing it,” says Keira Gill who runs A Lending Hand, an on-street food service that has been around for 11 years.

Gill was advised to register as a charity back in 2015, she said last week on the phone, and has been working on it since then. “We’re in the process of registering, it’s a nightmare,” she says.

She favours proportionate regulation, that doesn’t put groups out of action, she says, as the demand on the streets is more than ever.

Dublin City Council didn’t respond in time for publication to a request, sent Tuesday for a draft of the proposed bylaws.

Getting registered

Working towards becoming a registered charity, A Lending Hand employed an accountant, set up a board and sent piles of paperwork to the Charities Regulator, says Gill.

There has been a lot of back and forth about the necessary documents, she says.

She hopes that the organisation is now on the home stretch and will soon be a registered charity. “It’s not easy at all,” says Gill. “It costs money as well.”

Charity regulation is there to ensure that charities protect public funds as well as vulnerable people, says Colette Bennett, director of advocacy at The Wheel,  an association of charities, social enterprises and voluntary organisations.

If an organisation has a charitable purpose and receives public donations it should register, says Bennett. “If you meet the charity test, then you are a charity and you should be registered.”

Organisations which work with children or vulnerable adults should register with the Charities Regulator, says Bennett. “A safeguarding policy should be in place if you are dealing with vulnerable people.”

To start the process, a voluntary organisation has to make contact with the Charities Regulator, says Bennett. Then it has to set up a board, and draw up its foundational documents and policies and procedures.

The regulator will advise the organisation what it needs to submit. “It certainly is quite an involved process,” says Bennett.

The Charities Regulator’s registration guidelines note that an organisation needs a constitution, setting out objectives, and how it would be wound up – should the need arise.

It has to provide information about the people running the organisation and detailed financial information, including projections for the next two years.

Bennett says the Charities Regulator should understand that smaller voluntary organisations cannot be expected to meet the same standards as large charities with paid staff. “We advocate for proportionate regulation,” she says.

Sticking around

As a voluntary group – and not yet a registered charity – A Lending Hand doesn’t handle money, says Gill. Instead, people can donate to its butcher’s account and they use that to buy meat and ready-made meals.

A Lending Hand complies with food-safety rules and prepares the meals in the Lighthouse day centre, which has a certified kitchen, says Gill. The volunteers who cook have all had food-safety training, she says.

She hopes if the council introduces a permit, that the process will be straightforward so that voluntary groups can keep going. “If all the groups weren’t out there people would be dying,” says Gill.

On-street services hand out tents, sleeping bags, and clothes at night and they carry first-aid kits as well as providing food and water, she says.

There are more people sleeping on the streets of Dublin now, she says, including many asylum seekers. “We’re just trying to get people through one more night on the streets,” she says.

Bennett, the director of advocacy at The Wheel, says one idea going forward might be for several small volunteer-run organisations to come together under the umbrella of one registered charity.

Or, they could approach established homeless charities and suggest gaps in service that they could fill, she says.