“That is madness,” says Louisa Santoro, CEO of the Mendicity Institution. “A single person is not a sufficient level of staff to run any homeless service.”
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“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.
The squeeze in the private-rental sector means that those who run the programme for rough-sleepers must rely on social housing. Which isn’t always easy.
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.
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.
Several homeless Dubliners have pitched up in tents along the Royal Canal and say its safer than the alternatives. But they’ve been told they have to move on.
