Articles related to Homelessness

Many of those who are homeless and seeking mental health services end up waiting in hospital emergency departments. Many leave before being seen.

Councillors say they don’t know where the women will go yet if and when the Abigail Centre in Finglas closes.

Overflowing bowls, used needles scattered on the floor, and trails of blood. One man who stayed there said he left after three nights said because he couldn’t hack the disgusting bathrooms.

At meetings at City Hall this week, councillors talked about changes in plans for how to use council land, possible traffic changes around Sandymount Green, and the roll-out of more “hubs” for homeless families.

“Without empathy, thousands of our fellow citizens who are homeless will become irretrievably, permanently other. But they are not other.”

Charities that run such hostels say they have their own standards in place. But it’s not clear who, if anyone, is looking over their shoulders to make sure they meet them.

A survey funded by our readers and conducted by Amárach Research asked about issues including how often people call the freephone and can’t get a bed for the night, and the conditions in the hostels when they do get in.

Ingrid Casey worked with friends and called in favours to make the film, released today.

People who are homeless because they’ve fallen out with family are being asked to get sworn statements to prove this, to access homeless services.

While the emergency hostel at Lefroy House has evolved over the years, some say they’re still concerned that teenagers have to leave during the day – and that some are there too long.

Great news, thanks to 72 supporters, as of 30 March, we now have enough to pay a market-research firm to do this survey. Thanks everyone! We’ll get to work.

“What’s often overlooked in the broad sweep of articles and statistics about homelessness is that homelessness itself is a trauma,” writes Christine O’Donnell.

New standards for homeless services call for feedback from people who use them. But some say they’re afraid they’ll be punished if they complain to officials.

This would be a move towards decentralisation of government services for homeless people in the city, which some people say would make their lives better.

Some say they’d gladly move into a hostel if they could get a decent one, where couples could stay together, where recovering addicts don’t have to bunk with users, where they wouldn’t just get kicked out each day and have to start all over again.

In July this year, Waterways Ireland raised the water level to prevent people from sleeping or doing drugs under Binns Bridge, where Dorset Street crosses the Royal Canal.

It hasn’t been easy to find places to put new hostels, says independent Councillor Christy Burke, who also volunteers helping homeless people.

At meetings this week, Dublin city councillors tried to arrange a screening at Smithfield of the All-Ireland football final, talked about plans for George Bernard Shaw’s birthplace, and more.

Anti-homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry says he’s surprised Tusla is still referring children to night-time-only hostels.

“Our research repeatedly shows that the largest single cause of family homelessness is landlords selling up and using loopholes in the law to evict families,” says Mike Allen of Focus Ireland.

“Sleeping bags are provided to clients as a humanitarian response when there is no accommodation available,” says the DRHE. But rough-sleepers say that doesn’t always happen.

Minister Simon Coveney promised to end the use of hotels to shelter homeless families by 1 July. To some, a big part of his plan sounds like rebranding, rather than real change.

At recent committee meetings, councillors talked about new places to put homeless accommodation, and a packed house in Portobello.

Some called such sprinklers a “disgrace”, but the shop’s staff say after years of finding faeces and needles, “our priority is the well-being and safety of our staff”.

At last week’s Dublin City Council housing committee meeting, councillors discussed who’s monitoring homeless services and how to make sure you aren’t removed from the social housing list.

Across Dublin, rough sleepers have given up on calling the “homeless freephone” to get a spot in a hostel for the night. There’s no point, they say.

A year ago, Dublin City Council and housing activists clashed in court over the occupation of a vacant Bolton Street building. It’s still empty.

The two Dublin areas with the highest proportions of vacant dwellings aren’t exactly synonymous with vacancy.

The protests after Focus Ireland closed the hostel laid bare the challenges of balancing short and long-term solutions to Dublin’s housing crisis.

In an April letter to minister Alan Kelly, Dublin City Council chief Owen Keegan suggested that the rule encouraged people “to enter the ‘homeless’ system”.

Dublin City Council spends millions every year on hotel rooms, B&Bs and hostels for people with nowhere else to live. And it wants them to know they have rights while staying there.

Squatters were evicted from the property last year. It was sold and left vacant for months, and now it’s been reoccupied. In a time of housing shortage, it’s home to at least 30 people – and soon, perhaps, more.

Rebecca Deegan wanted us to look at homelessness differently, so she painted this, about “the vulnerability and isolation felt by those who have nothing”. It’s the latest in our series on works by Dublin artists.

There are single people living in big houses, and families living in rooms. What’s the solution to the mismatch?

A powerful economic argument fuelled the drive for independence, but those involved in the Rising didn’t envision a low-tax location for US capital, with homeless children living on its streets.

A reader asked us to look into how many vacant properties the HSE has in the Dublin area, and whether they could be used for housing. Here’s what we found out.

What has been driving the housing crisis in Dublin is the absence of credit within Ireland’s financial system – in other words, from Irish banks, writes Mick Byrne, a researcher at UCD.

In theory, homeless people have the right to vote. But once it gets down to the details, many say they wouldn’t know where to start to exercise that right.

Dublin City Council’s plan to build 22 modular homes in Ballymun by Christmas sparked protests. Now its effort to put 29 more modulars on a site in Drimnagh have hit some bumps too.

Regulations that came into effect in 2013 effectively banned bedsits. Is enforcement of these rules pushing people into homelessness?

If the houses are built to anything like the standards that apply in Austria or Scandinavia, the families who’ll end up living in them won’t want to leave.

Dublin City Council says it’ll install 22 modular houses for homeless families on a site in Poppintree before Christmas. But a housing co-op already has plans for the site.

Following the recent deaths of two homeless men sleeping rough in the city centre, Dublin City Council’s Cold Winter Initiative will be closely scrutinised.

Both Dublin City Council and the Fine Gael-Labour government are moving forward with plans to bring in modular homes for homeless families by Christmas.

On North Inner-City development, rising rents and the homelessness crisis, the government is looking out for property interests, rather than the people’s interests.

Until we build more homes, we need to raise the rent supplement, introduce rent certainty and make several other changes, writes Bob Jordan, chief executive of housing charity Threshold.

On Friday, housing activists quit a city-council-owned building on Bolton Street that they had occupied, ending a stand-off with Dublin City Council.

In our illustrated comment of the week, Robert Mirolo depicts one reader’s suggestion that ships could be a temporary solution to Dublin’s housing crisis.

Dublin City Council is desperate for hotel rooms for homeless families. Does that mean hotel owners can set any conditions they want?

Deputy Lord Mayor Cieran Perry talks about his involvement in the 1990s anti-drug movement and how the government needs to move faster on homelessness.

Dublin City Council doesn’t want housing activists to move homeless families into the abandoned hostel now, perhaps because of a plan from an organisation called Novas Initiatives to turn it into social housing later.

Dublin City Council has begun planning for the construction of 400 prefabricated houses to accommodate homeless families. While some councillors are very wary, prefab housing has come a long way over the years and other countries have good experiences with it.

In taking over vacant sites, some citizens are making up for government inaction.

Given the severity of the homelessness problem, direct actions are beginning to emerge as a response.