Commissioned by Dublin Region Homeless Executive, the review was done to inform the agency’s latest action plan for homelessness.
There are only spotty, or no, coordinated supports for homeless people living in hostels, says a review of homeless services commissioned by Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE).
“Wraparound supports are inconsistent or unavailable,” it says. That means aids like mental health and addiction supports, or supports for people with disabilities.
That contradicts DRHE’s own position. Its new homeless action plan says that it, and a private inspector, have inspected hostels since 2022, and that wraparound supports are available in all of them.
This was one of several issues flagged in the review, carried out by the Centre for Effective Services, to inform the new homeless action plan.
The researchers spoke to, among others, homeless people, homeless charities, the HSE, Tusla, and councillors.
They found “strong dissatisfaction” with standards in homeless accommodation, which was described as "chaotic and lacking basic dignity”, the review says.
It also raised the increased reliance on hostels run by private companies. “Nearly every group flagged concerns about private emergency accommodation (PEA): the cost of, the standard and need for trauma-informed model of care,” says the report.
The review also calls for “regular inspections across all emergency providers”.
Dublin city councillors on the housing committee held a workshop on Monday, at which they discussed the review and the future action plan.
The new action plan for 2025 to 2028 commits, among other things, to reduce the councils’ reliance on private emergency accommodation and to involve homeless people in designing homeless services going forward.
Issues raised in the review have been incorporated into the new plan, says Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney, who chairs the council’s housing committee.
Heney says she hopes councillors will agree to the draft action plan at the full Dublin City Council meeting on 7 July.
“The plan is there to guide us and to aspire to achieving everything we have in the plan, but it is difficult to achieve the elimination of homelessness,” she says.
Councillors at the workshop spoke consistently about their concerns as to the experiences of children in homeless services, says Heney.
In focus groups for the review, people with experience living in homeless accommodation flagged concerns about safety in hostels and being shunted from place to place.
“Being moved frequently without notice or reason was traumatic and destabilising,” says the report.
Also, they found it distressing to have to recount traumatic personal histories to multiple staff members. Some said they worried about staff burnout.
Stepping back from the detail, the review says that “emergency accommodation must evolve into a stabilising platform, not just a bed for the night. Safety, dignity, and support need to be central design principles.”
DRHE should move towards involving “service users” in the design of homeless services and creating panels with representatives from service users for procurement and policy reviews.
That recommendation has made it into the new action plan.
“Service user working groups and representation in the planning, delivery and review of services with steps taken to support a capacity to engage and to secure participation of the diversity among service-users,” it says.
Researchers appear to have a different take to DRHE managers as to whether minimum standards are currently in place in all homeless hostels.
Officials at DRHE have said, since 2022 – when it published new standards for private hostels – that there are standards in place in all hostels.
The review, completed in May, says DRHE should: “Implement mandatory standards and regular inspections across all emergency providers.”
But Mary Hayes, the director of DRHE, says in the new action plan that it has already improved standards in homeless accommodation, with training in private hostels and key performance indicators.
DRHE and an independent company have regularly inspected private hostels and charity-run hostels since 2022 – including 568 unannounced visits – the new action plan says.
Dublin Fire Brigade is now carrying out its own fire-safety inspections in homeless services, the new action plan says. That follows findings a few years ago that multiple council-funded hostels were in breach of fire safety.
Heney, the Fianna Fáil councillor who chairs the housing committee, said members of it really want the DRHE to focus on improving the experience of homeless services for children.
But the draft action plan only outlines two improvements to homeless services for children.
It says that all homeless hostels should provide wifi, given that many children use the internet to help with homework.
The draft plan also includes an action to develop activity programmes for children in homeless accommodation.
The DRHE hopes to move towards “housing solutions” and increase homelessness prevention, including through the tenant-in-situ scheme, says the new action plan.
Under that scheme, the council was able to prevent households becoming homeless by buying their homes if the landlord was selling and their income was such that they would qualify for social housing – and then keeping them on as tenants.
But the Department of Housing recently tightened rules and cut funding for the tenant-in-situ scheme. And the council has stopped processing new applications, as its budget is maxed out.
Heney, the Fianna Fáil councillor, says she hopes the funding restriction will be reversed. The Minister for Housing, James Browne, is her party colleague.
“I’m hoping that matters around the tenant in situ scheme will be resolved,” Heney says. “We need to focus on any measures that assist us in reducing homelessness.”
Ideally, in its homeless action plan, the council would be working to eliminate homelessness, she says. But with the current housing crisis, she said, that is difficult to achieve.
Along with a new understanding of what a just society looks like, say members of the Irish Penal Abolition Network.
Crumlin Boxing Club is run by Philip Sutcliffe Snr, McGregor’s boxing coach, a Dublin city councillor who – like McGregor – has voiced anti-immigrant views.
Drone delivery company Manna looks poised to start flying from a base in Glasnevin – and the paper suggests the council has no plans to stop it.
We narrowly missed a Boaty McBoatface situation.
