Local councillors refuse to lease building to homeless charity at cut rate, saying central government should pay

Crosscare, the homeless charity, runs a hostel for 33 people on Amiens Street in the north inner-city. Dublin City Council owns the building.

On Tuesday 9 July, local councillors rejected a proposal from officials to formalise the lease and rent the building to the charity for a nominal fee.

The market value of the rent is around €400,000 per year, according to a council report to the Central Area Committee. The council proposed renting it to Crosscare for €200 a year for five years, to use only for homeless accommodation.

Independent Councillor Nial Ring said councillors should reject the plan. “Effectively, Dublin City Council will be subsidising the homeless services by €400,000 per annum for infinitum.”

“Now, my view is that government should be providing homeless services, not Dublin City Council,” said Ring.

The council will get no credit for it and they were being loaded on with work, he said. “Why are we stepping in and using our funds, our assets to look after the homeless?”

The majority of councillors on the Central Area Committee refused to grant the lease.

Independent Councillor Cieran Perry said by phone on Tuesday that the council spends millions every year on homeless services, but the problem with donating a building is that it is invisible in the accounts. “It’s a loss of income for the council that is not being recorded,” he said.

A spokesperson for Dublin Region Homeless Executive said, “The Crosscare service at 61/62 Amiens Street provides valuable support to households presenting as homeless.”

“It is a high threshold, drug free transitional service that works intensively to progress households out of homelessness and into independent living,” they said.

The spokesperson didn’t directly respond to a question as to whether the council would benefit from charging the charity the full commercial rent on the building.

A spokesperson for Crosscare said: “We are aware of the Council’s decision and are in contact with the DRHE regarding any next steps.”

How it is funded

Councils are responsible for running homeless services in their areas.

In Dublin, the four councils work together through the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to do that across all four areas.

Councils can claim back up to 90 percent of what they spend on emergency accommodation from the Department of Housing. The Department of Health also funds some homeless services.

Last year, the council spent an estimated €265 million on homeless services but expected to claim back around €245 million of that money from government departments, according to Dublin City Council’s budget 2024.

At the meeting, several councillors spoke in favour of rejecting the lease to Crosscare. They support the work of the homeless charity, but central government has to fund homeless services rather than the council, they said.

Crosscare is one of the better homeless charities, said Perry, the independent councillor at the meeting. But “we’re yet again subsidising government policy”.

Perry wondered how the council’s contribution in renting the building for a pittance would be recorded in its spending on homeless services.

Independent Councillor Christy Burke said that the Minister for Housing, Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien, should tell the Department of Housing to buy the building from the council.

Independent Councillor Malachy Steenson asked whether Crosscare could say if it already gets government grants to fund the lease of the building on Amiens Street. “Because I’m sure they are.”

Said Ring: “If Crosscare went to central government and said 61/62 Amiens Street, we have to pay €400,000 to rent it, the cheque would be written today.” The council could then use that money to fund CCTV cameras and tackle illegal dumping, he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said that the department doesn’t provide any direct funding to homeless charities.

It “provides funding to local authorities towards the operational costs of homeless accommodation and related services under Section 10 of the Housing Act, 1988”, he said.

“The Department has no role in the procurement or leasing arrangements in respect of emergency accommodation,” said the spokesperson.

Charities and private providers of homeless hostels charge the council for their work under service-level agreements.

What charity-run hostels charge varies widely, shows a DHRE financial report for 2023. Some hostels are more expensive as they provide more staff, or nursing staff, or are paying higher rent for the building.

If a charity owns the building, the council doesn’t cover the rent. Some charities also contribute to the costs of running hostels from their own funds drawn from public donations.

Defer or reject

Green Party Councillor Janet Horner, who chairs the Central Area Committee, asked council officials if other homeless charities rent hostel buildings from the council at a discount.

Yes, said Cathy Cassidy, a senior staff officer in the council’s planning and property development section. She would compile a list, she said.

Cassidy said queries about this lease would need to be addressed by the housing department within the council, and that she would seek answers.

Horner, the Green Party councillor, suggested that councillors defer the decision until they learn more.

She also sought assurances that rejecting the lease wouldn’t affect the operation of the hostel.

Cassidy said that the building is already in use by Crosscare so its operations wouldn’t be affected.

Frank Lambe, a senior executive officer at Dublin City Council, said he would come back to the next meeting of the committee with a detailed explanation as to why the council would charge just a nominal fee.

“I fully understand what the councillors are saying,” he said.

Ring insisted that he wanted the committee to reject the lease. “Can we use the word reject,” he said, “not defer.”

“One-hundred percent reject,” said Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Boylan. “We don’t want a further explanation, we want the government to pay for it.”