JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT, HERITAGE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT debate -
Tuesday, 3 Nov 2009

National Strategy on Homelessness: Discussion with Simon Communities of Ireland.

Chairman

The next item on our agenda is the issue of homelessness. We welcome officials from the Simon Communities of Ireland to discuss homelessness with us. Members will recall that we discussed the national homelessness strategy with the Make Room Campaign Alliance at our meeting of 18 November 2008. I understand that fresh concerns have arisen since, and I thank the delegation from Simon for attending today to tell us about it. We are conscious that this is your special anniversary on which we have all received correspondence and that is why we were keen to invite you to appear before the committee.

I welcome the following: Mr. Patrick J. Burke, chief executive officer, Simon Communities of Ireland; Ms Niamh Randall, national research and policy manager; Ms Colette Kelleher, director, Cork Simon Community; Mr. Niall Mulligan, chief executive officer, Dundalk Simon Community and Mr. Sam McGuinness, chief executive officer, Dublin Simon Community.

The format of our meeting will involve a brief presentation by the delegation followed by a question and answer session.

I draw attention to the fact that while members of the committee have absolute privilege the same privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before it. Members are reminded of a long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that Members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House, or any official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I invite Mr. Burke to make his presentation.

Mr. Patrick J. Burke

I thank the Chairman. Simon Communities of Ireland welcomes the opportunity to meet with the committee to highlight some of the issues facing our communities throughout the country in the area of homelessness.

The Simon Communities of Ireland provide the best possible care, accommodation and support for people experiencing homelessness and those at risk. We work with people experiencing homelessness to tackle the root causes and to come up with innovative solutions. We also have a role in campaigning to ensure the Government's commitments to ending street homelessness and long-term homelessness are fulfilled.

We deliver services to approximately 5,000 people annually. We are made up of eight communities co-operating throughout the country in Cork, Dublin, Dundalk, Galway, the midlands, the mid-west, the north west and south east. In addition, the national office performs a co-ordinating role in terms of campaigning in the areas of housing, homelessness and the wider poverty and social inclusion agenda. We promote best practice in service delivery and recruit in the region of 60 full-time volunteers nationally who work in our services throughout the country at tremendous value to the services.

We are very much aware of the economic climate in which we work and the fact that difficult decisions must be made. Obviously, that forms the context in which we all work. However, in some of the points we make today we want to share some of our experience and knowledge gained over the past 40 years in working with some of the most vulnerable people in society, those who experience homelessness or those at risk of homelessness.

We are aware of the Government's two key commitments, the elimination of the need to sleep rough and the elimination of the need to stay longer than six months in emergency accommodation. Those two high-level commitments were first made in the Towards 2016 social partnership agreement and articulated in the Government's homeless strategy, entitled The Way Home, to address adult homelessness in Ireland, published in 2008. The associated homeless strategy national implementation plan also forms a blueprint by which other issues can be addressed, including preventative measures, meeting long-term housing needs to help people progress out of homelessness, ensuring effective and responsive services and ensuring that funding arrangements are appropriate.

This implementation plan now needs to be updated. The deadline of 2010 is fast approaching so we need to make sure that the identified actions are on schedule, as well as which Departments and agencies are responsible for delivering them. We have not yet seen that so it is imperative to get a clear update. We are not talking about a costly glossy document, but about a simple table laying out the current status of those actions, as well as what corrective steps need to take place if they are to be delivered by 2010.

Having said that, we acknowledge that there is a real commitment to this strategy. We also acknowledge the personal commitment of the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Finneran, and the hard work he puts into this area. We work closely with his officials in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and appreciate their focus, but the issue is bigger than any one Department. Homelessness is a cross-cutting issue so we must see co-ordination by a series of actors, agencies and Departments to ensure that all the commitments are addressed.

We already see some key developments occurring, including the supported living initiative which will address the low and medium support needs of homeless people. We welcome that. One of my colleagues will address the complex needs that have yet to be addressed. We need to be clear about how we are going to deal with them.

The National Homeless Consultative Committee has a key role to play but we need to re-examine its terms of reference to ensure that they are strengthened so that all the key players will be able to work more closely together in monitoring progress and meeting the targets we have set ourselves. That committee should meet more often. It currently meets twice a year, but in the run-up to 2010, monthly meetings would be more appropriate.

We affirm the necessity of all the key players, including the HSE, the Office of the Minister for Drugs, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, to engage fully to ensure that the commitments are achieved. Unless we work together through cross-departmental teams and the consultative forum, this will not happen.

I also wish to affirm that the capital assistance scheme will remain in place following a recent review. It has been valuable in finding long-term solutions for people experiencing homelessness. The money that is ring-fenced for special needs should be specifically for homelessness also, if we are to find the necessary long-term solutions.

We are all aware that we are in a time of recession and in such times people are much more at risk of becoming homeless. We expect that the need for our services will grow over time. Homelessness was a serious issue in Ireland before the economic downturn, but the current recession is exacerbating it. All our communities are extremely worried about what will happen in 2010. We have no firm commitments as to how we will be funded. There is no doubt but that there will be a greater demand for our services.

Homelessness affects the most vulnerable in our society, people on the margins, with insecure jobs and insecure accommodation. The Government has repeated its commitment to protecting the most vulnerable in society, who include those experiencing homelessness. In that context, we must ensure that services supporting the most vulnerable people are maintained.

I will now hand over to my colleague, Ms Collette Kelleher, director of Simon in Cork who will speak to us about complex needs.

Ms Colette Kelleher

I thank members of the joint committee for their time. It is a difficult period and I know there are many calls on the public purse at the moment. As Mr. Burke said, recessions do not make things easier for people. I am speaking from the front line, at the coalface so to speak. I wish to talk about the particular group of people Simon has always worked with since its inception 40 years ago. They are the people who are hardest to reach and have the most complicated needs. They are people with whom other services or families have not been able to cope. They are homeless and they face the most severe challenges. Sometimes that is hard to put across. This year we decided we would try to flesh that out for people. We are doing the work every day so we understand what we are talking about when we refer to people with complex needs. It is important to spell that out, however. In the packs that have been circulated, there is a report entitled Sick and Tired of Homelessness. It includes a summary on pages 3 to 5, which explains what we mean when we refer to people with complex needs. When we did that audit, we basically examined everybody who passed through Cork Simon's doors for a week in September. There were 183 people altogether about whom we collected some information. As regards the top-line information, 58% had a diagnosed mental health condition, which is very high. These are not people saying they are a bit down; they have been diagnosed medically. Almost 60% of those who came through the door had a mental health condition, a further 48% had a diagnosed physical condition and 77% of the total had both.

Alcohol featured largely, and we work closely with people who have addictions. Some 82% reported using alcohol and almost half of that group described themselves as heavy users. Alcohol used to be the main feature, but drug use is now becoming a greater and more common feature. Mr. Sam McGuinness will talk a bit more about the Dublin experience, but even outside the capital drug use is becoming more prevalent. In Dundalk and Cork we are dealing with people who are actively using heroin, which is a big change for us on the ground, although Dublin Simon has been responding to that problem for many years.

Some 52% of those with a diagnosed mental health condition also used drugs, so we are not talking about a single problem of mental or physical ill health or addictions. All these things may apply in one person, which makes the lives of such people particularly challenging.

Some 87% of the people we worked with had a medical card, while 63% were in receipt of a Department of Social and Family Affairs disability payment. Those are all the people we worked with in the emergency shelter and the houses we have. We also have people living independently in flats. If one drills down one sees people who are in the group the Government is targeting. Some 20 people stayed in the shelter for longer than six months. Their health needs would be even higher. Those statistics are on page five. I talked about the whole group, but for certain sections within the group it is even higher. We are talking about people who have many challenges in their lives.

Notwithstanding that, organisations such as Cork Simon have had a lot of success in accepting the person, but are offering them a pathway out of this difficult situation. While we describe difficulty, we are not hopeless in our responses to it and we know what works.

We wish to highlight a number of issues to the joint committee, which are important in ensuring that this vulnerable and marginalised group of people with complex issues to deal with can be supported. Social housing is a critical part of that mix, as is access to private rented accommodation. There have been historical issues regarding the quantity and quality of private rented accommodation for the group of people we work with. The changes made to the rent supplement scheme, while understandable at one level, are having quite a disproportionate effect on people we work with. We strongly supported the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, announced recently. However, the theory has yet to translate into practice on the ground in terms of providing extra homes and accommodation for the people we work with. On the new supported living initiative, we welcome this, but we are worried that it will not address the concerns of people I spoke about earlier, those with very complex needs.

In the mix of supports, there really is a case for some residential type of component. Obviously, the issue with residential housing is that it is not cheap, no more than nursing homes, although it is very much part of the mix we offer in Cork, Galway and so on. It is not necessary for everybody, but it has to be in the mix for people who have exceptionally complex needs, for whom life is not possible without that type of ongoing and active support.

We are concerned that this is not particularly well addressed in The Way Home. We are concerned, too, about the provision that exists, that there may be a move towards not designating people who live in long-term facilities, such as the small residential houses we talk about, as being homeless any more. At one level this is very helpful in terms of the label, but the problem is that if they lose the label, we lose the money. Deputy Lynch would know about the facilities I am talking about. In Blackrock we have a facility for 11 people. These units are very much homes, not an institution, but they are geared towards people with very high levels of need who find life on their own extremely difficult. That is not to say that some will not be able to make that move, but for many it is their home for life, the place where they will live out their days. That element of provision within "The Way Home" is not well articulated. We have five such facilities in Cork and I am very worried about our ability to ensure that they will all still be open this time next year. I shall now hand over to Mr. Niall Mulligan.

Mr. Niall Mulligan

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. I am the CEO of Dundalk Simon Community. To give some brief background, we work with people from the counties of Louth, Meath, Cavan and Monaghan. We provide services over a range of areas, outreach, prevention, emergency accommodation, settlement, supported housing, day support and independent living. We therefore work right across the gamut of services.

Our approach is one of protecting and upholding the human rights of all people who access our services, particularly in the areas of housing, health, education and employment. All those with whom we work have a right to be treated with dignity and respect, as individuals and as citizens of Ireland.

I would like to outline some of the main issues that arise when we begin to look at homelessness as both a rural and an urban issue or concern. While urban homelessness, particularly rough sleeping, is more visible in towns and cities, this does not mean that people do not become homeless in rural areas. On the contrary, lack of emergency night shelters and hostels in rural areas means that people who become homeless there tend to travel towards the towns and cities where they hope to get the supports they need. There are particular problems in rural areas in relation to isolation. Often there is limited access to support services, information and public transport.

For example, in the north east, the area that I am particularly involved in, a person who is homeless with a particular alcohol or drug problem will find it virtually impossible to get a place in a residential detox programme without having to leave his or her community to go to Dublin, Cork or Limerick. I know of at least four people over the past couple of months who have not been able to access a detox programme in that area. When people gravitate towards urban areas, they often find support services are full and are left with little option but to sleep wherever they can, normally on the streets. Walking through Dublin today I saw several such people. This means that extremely vulnerable people will have moved away from their friends and family, the critical support networks and structures that most of us take for granted. However, this is a time when they are needed most.

Many of the causes of homelessness remain the same, regardless of whether it is an urban or rural area. Ms Kelleher has outlined quite a number of them in terms of drug or alcohol issues, mental health issues, poverty and family breakdown. In Simon we want to see services and responses locally in all parts of the country, so that people are not forced to leave their communities and can remain connected to the support networks of family and friends. Local issues need local responses. This is, and always has been, our approach and it is reinforced in the national homelessness strategy, "The Way Home".

We in the local Simon communities around Ireland see, first-hand, the devastating impact of the current economic crisis on people already marginalised and vulnerable. In many ways the Celtic tiger just passed such people by. People turning to us now, often have nowhere else to go, they have run out of options, are in poor health and are isolated, lonely and excluded. Many have experienced great trauma in their lives and at this point their only option is the Simon Community. The added tragedy is that in the current climate all the Simon communities around Ireland are under increasing pressure in terms of funding — with reductions in statutory funding across a range of budget lines and uncertainty in terms of voluntary donations.

It is more important now than ever before that Simon services are guaranteed the essential funding to allow them to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is critical that we do not turn back the clock on the progress made in addressing homelessness in recent years. None of us sitting on this side of the room knows what will happen in 2010. We have no idea what our funding will be, and we have no service level agreements signed. As we sit here we have no idea where we will stand as regards money, on 1 January. The message we are getting in the north-east is to the effect that there will be cuts.

We know, however, that if there are cuts in our statutory funding, it will be devastating for the people with whom we work. On a more positive note, the supported living initiative, SLI, has been mentioned and we welcome this development. Some considerable work has been done on this in a Dublin context. I am sure Mr. Sam McGuinness will outline that in his presentation. Outside of Dublin the concern is that we are getting very little information on how this and other schemes will be rolled out. In addition, such schemes need to be tailored to meet local needs and local demands. We have had no clarity as yet, on how and when this will happen.

A related gap, which Ms Kelleher alluded to, is the fact that we have identified nationally that people living within our emergency accommodation, whose needs are high, actually fall outside the low and medium support parameters of SLI. If I brought the committee to our emergency accommodation facility in Dundalk, I could introduce members to people there who have been with us for four, five or six years, simply because there is nowhere else for them to go. This means they are living in a 25-bed hostel over that length of time. One man is 79 years of age; he should not be there, but there is nowhere for him to go.

There are several other people like him, not just in Dundalk but right around the country. They fit within the context of complex needs we have spoken about and they depend on our night shelter and emergency accommodation services, just to stay alive. We do not make this point lightly, and it is not a throwaway comment. They will not survive for long if they are forced back on the streets. One of the concerns we have about emergency accommodation and funding is that in the Dublin context it is being defined purely in terms of B & B provision. This means, in effect, that money is being saved under B & B provision by cutting back on initiatives such as SLI and so on. B & B provision has been cut in Louth, and rightly so in some cases, perhaps, because there was vast overspending. However, the next step is that emergency accommodation, namely, the hostels and night shelters we run will not be examined. The point has already been made, in terms of the individuals dependent on that form of emergency accommodation.

On the current legislation, the new Housing Bill 2008 will put local and regional homelessness forums on a statutory footing. This extends to the action plans on homelessness which each forum will develop. We support this development and lobbied for its inclusion in the Bill. It is now critical that becomes a reality. There are some areas where the local and regional forums meet regularly and function very well, but they are less effective in others and in such cases I am not even sure whether they exist at all.

In Dundalk our experience of the regional homelessness forum is varied. On the Louth County Council homelessness forum our experience is extremely positive. It is a very active, enthusiastic and positive forum and we have just signed off on the final draft of our new action plan. We are waiting for an opportunity to present that to the housing SPC and Louth County Council to get it signed off. That is extremely positive from our perspective because it gives us a framework within which to work and develop our services, hopefully over the next three years. In the rest of the north east, we are aware that a forum exists within Meath County Council and a plan is in place which extends to 2011. We are also aware that a homeless forum operates within Cavan and Monaghan. We do not yet sit on those fora, but we would like to. We are not aware of any regional homeless forum in the north east though the idea has been discussed in County Louth. It has been welcomed in a positive way because it is seen as possibly avoiding duplication of service provision and may lead to ways in which we could share services across counties.

We believe the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has issued guidelines this month to each local authority on the establishment of homeless fora. It is essential that all of these fora are up and running before the end of 2009 and working on their local homeless action plans because therein lies the framework to develop and protect services. If this does not happen some areas of the country will be operating in limbo and the rural-urban divide that has been discussed here will widen when it comes to service provision for people who are homeless. From the point of view of joined-up thinking and collaboration, it is worth noting that the north east regional drugs task force is now represented on the Louth homeless forum. We hope this will be extended to those in Meath, Cavan and Monaghan. Given the well established links between homelessness and drug or alcohol issues, this approach should be encouraged nationally. I now hand over to Mr. Sam McGuiness, CEO of the Dublin Simon Community.

Mr. Sam McGuinness

I would like to focus people's minds on some of the comments made earlier. At 6 a.m. this morning across Dublin city from Parnell Square to the top of Harcourt Street a count was carried out and it was discovered that 29 people were sleeping rough. That number has increased recently. Most of us have observed the number of people who are tapping or on the streets during the day and night. That is obviously a major concern.

I would like to talk about the structure of homelessness in Dublin, the methods being used, what is working and what is not. At the end of 2008 in order to push harder on the Key to the Door homeless strategy three reports were published. The first gathered evidence on the homeless situation. Many people were perceived as homeless but not on the local authority housing lists. The report, called Counted in 2008, detected 2,366 adults who were homeless across the four Dublin local authority areas. That calculated as being 2,144 families. Fortunately or unfortunately a large group comprising 60% of them were in emergency accommodation. Of that group of approximately 1,400, in excess of 800 were in private emergency accommodation. The remainder were in some form of emergency accommodation. Some form of emergency accommodation could mean them being in night-only shelters. Those staying in a night-only shelter are required to arrive there by 10 p.m. and by 8.45 a.m. the following morning, come hell or high water, in rain, hail or snow, regardless of their circumstances or health needs, they are put out on the streets.

The Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, recently visited one of our night shelters, Island House and he was very empathetic to the needs of the people there. There were 17 service users in for that night. As we approached the doorway, I spoke to a lad sitting there, whose name was John. He had one crutch and I asked why he needed it. He told us he had hypothermia in his legs. When I innocently asked if he would not be better to have two crutches, he said that he had a bad arm. When I asked how bad it was he rolled up his sleeve. It was like the Rift Valley across it. He had obviously fallen very close to the Luas and it had taken a piece of his arm away. That man was waiting to leave the night-only shelter at 8.45 a.m. and this conversation took place at approximately 8.20 a.m. That is what is happening in Dublin and we are working on it.

The next report evaluated all the services and why Dublin is sometimes perceived as being a revolving door for homeless people. A question was asked as to whether value for money was being provided. Some €62 million is being spent across the greater Dublin area on homelessness. That money is divided between the HSE and the four local authorities. As a result of those reports, we put together an implementation plan called Pathway to Home. As one can imagine, if these reports were accurate and proper work were done, the first thing to do would be to work on the reconfiguration of homelessness. There are approximately five or six pillars. The first pillar could possibly be having many food centres across the city of Dublin which are funded and into which people could go during the day. Then we have emergency services on which we are spending €30 million, which covers the private and emergency shelters etc. We also have transitional accommodation, to which people move for a short period of time and stay for perhaps nine to 15 months. They may move from there to long-term residential accommodation or perhaps to their own place. As Ms Kelleher said, we have the only homeless detoxification centre in the city at Ushers Island. That offers detoxification for three weeks and rehabilitation for 12 weeks after which we have after-care accommodation.

In this entire process 29% of the more than 2,000 people could have moved on to their own accommodation if it were available. The outcome of Pathway to Home is that there needs to be a focus on housing first. When we had money in the boom times we could not afford the housing. Now we have the housing and obviously we cannot afford the capital grants. Mr. Mulligan mentioned the new leasing arrangement, which needs to work. Without the housing first model and without places to go we will be stacking people — all 1,300 or 1,400 of them — in emergency accommodation till death do us part. The critical piece of Pathway to Home is a plan. The Homeless Agency through the Homeless Agency partnership board is focused on ensuring that we reduce the number of people who are sleeping rough and eliminate the need for that, and to eliminate the need for any in excess of a six-month period of being homeless. They are critical goals that can be achieved.

There is a focus on moving homelessness from the centre of Dublin city. Some 70% of the people who are homeless are in and around the centre of the city of Dublin. The plan is now focused on the four local authorities working together to realign where the homeless centres are and to help people in south Dublin to have the support they need in south Dublin. What we mean by housing is housing with supports. In order to get the 1,117 people who are eligible to move on to their own place with supports, we need to have that and it is part of SLI. That needs to kick in. At present we are seeking tenders to supply those needs.

All in all, in Dublin we have a formula that works. It is very challenging because obviously the Homeless Agency partnership has the four local authorities, the HSE and members of NGOs like me. Obviously we constantly challenge each other, but we work together, which is very important. Hopefully the 2,500 people will have a new determination coming into next year. That does not mean that there will not at some time in the future be a homeless experience for people, but at least we have a plan to address it.

Obviously we have a national plan for the future, The Way Home. As Mr. Burke said, there is no concrete implementation plan that we can track like the way the Homeless Agency partnership board works. Unfortunately also there is now perceived to be a need for a merger between the Homeless Agency and three other organisations, the Affordable Homes Partnership, the National Building Agency and the Centre for Housing Research. My view on the Homeless Agency is that if it is not broken it does not need to be fixed. It is important that homelessness forms part of any new agency, which is to be called the housing and sustainable community agency. If that was mentioned in any room we would all wonder what it meant. It does not deal with any aspect of homelessness. I have reviewed its vision, objectives and general functions, which are to provide advice, to assist, to provide research and to carry out regulatory duties. Expressions such as those do not suggest that anybody is intending to fix the national problem.

In Dublin we are heavily focused on the issues and on the execution of the plan. We are focused on achieving better value for money. We are hopeful that the €62 million currently being spent will be ring fenced in future budgets and that the resources will be available to provide the expenses involved in SLI. I accept Mr. Mulligan's point that many Simon Communities around the country do not have the same opportunity because the private emergency element cannot be ring-fenced in the same way and the funds cannot be used to the same extent.

There will be a funding problem with the changes. We have at least 100 permanent rough sleepers in Dublin. I am concerned that, as winter approaches, things will get more chaotic. In these economic conditions there will be further strains on the resources and the purses of all of us.

Ms Niamh Randall

We thank the committee for inviting us to address it at this busy time. We ask the committee for its support in a number of areas. The poor and vulnerable, whom this Government has repeatedly pledged to protect, must be protected from further cuts in budget 2010. The national implementation plan should be updated on an annual basis. Activity to date must be tracked and timelines assigned and departmental or agency responsibility for the delivery of the remaining actions must be clearly highlighted. There have to be effective responses to meet the needs of those homeless people who also have complex needs.

Long-term accommodation and the support needs of people who are homeless must be addressed as a matter of priority. The 2010 commitments cannot be met unless these are addressed. Supported housing services for people who are or have been homeless must be maintained and future provision planned for and resourced.

Simon services must be guaranteed the essential funding to allow them to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people in our society, particularly at this critical time. There have to be sufficient cold weather strategies in all areas where they are required throughout the winter. When the national housing services support agency is established the focus on homelessness should not diminish in any way.

The same energy and enthusiasm currently being given to the Dublin action plan must be given to the national homeless strategy and implementation plan for areas outside of Dublin. The habitual residence condition and its impact on homelessness and homeless services has to be addressed at a policy level, which is not currently the case in the national homeless strategy or the implementation plan. There is a need to acknowledge the cross-cutting nature of the habitual residence condition and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, in conjunction with the Department of Social and Family Affairs, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the social partners, should conduct an impact assessment of the habitual residence condition on increasing homelessness and the risk of same.

We ask this committee to put its weight behind all the good work that is being done and to ensure that such efforts are sustained. We hope that members will continue to remind the Government of its commitments to end long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough by 2010, and to monitor the implementation of the national homelessness strategy and implementation plan. We would appreciate the opportunity to return to the committee in the future to report on the Simon Communities of Ireland's perspective and experiences of the issues of homelessness around the country.

Senator Dominic Hannigan

I have a few questions on the presentation, which was very informative. The first is on the research done in Cork, which is very shocking in revealing that 82% of people are involved in alcohol abuse and 39% in drug abuse. To what extent were these prior factors which contributed to people's homelessness and to what extent are they a result of homelessness?

The second question relates to the gender split, which revealed that 86%, or 17 out of 20 homeless people, were male. How are their needs fed into the homeless action plans? I presume these people need one-bedroom flats as opposed to multi-room apartments.

My third question relates to the north east and it is directed to Mr. Mulligan. How many numbers does he see in Dundalk? Does he deal specifically with Louth or does he also deal with Meath? Do I take it that neither the regional drugs task forces nor the Simon Communities sit on the Meath housing forum? Might it be better if that situation was changed?

Deputy Johnny Brady

I thank the Chairman and welcome the witnesses. I compliment them on their presentation and on the work they have done over the years. The Simon Communities of Ireland is a long-established organisation which has traditionally operated in the larger population areas, such as Dublin, Galway and Cork. In north Meath it also covers larger populations.

I became a councillor in 1974 and have been a TD since 1997, and I am not surprised that 82% of homeless people are alcoholics because I have come across such people in small rural towns, particularly on Friday evenings or Saturdays in rural areas when places close down. I relied on council officials to a great extent but Meath County Council have appointed two homeless officers and they have done tremendous work, always being available to see homeless people.

Housing is very important but county councils used to build one-bedroom flatlets designed for single people. Many of the people about whom we are talking are single, even if some are separated and have moved out of their homes as a result. We were always able to house large numbers in those flatlets but the policy changed and council and Department officials told us it was nearly as cheap to build a two-bedroom as a one-bedroom property. The change in policy, however, created a lot more demand, particularly where there were children. I have no problem with children taking precedence but what do the witnesses think of the idea of a housing quota in each county for homeless people? Homeless people do not get priority at present.

Are the results of the study in Cork replicated across the country? I am sure they are. Alcohol is a serious problem and drugs are a new problem, even in rural areas. Homeless officers have told me of what happens when temporary accommodation is secured for homeless people. Those people create problems by coming into the property drunk or using drugs, and the landlords end up throwing them out. That is a problem across the country and one with which I am confronted day-in, day-out. These people are only in a place for a few nights before they are chucked out and have to argue with homelessness officers for another place. It is all right to give these unfortunate people houses but back-up services must also be available because most are not in a position to help themselves.

Deputy Ciarán Lynch

I welcome the Simon Communities of Ireland to the committee. It is unusual to congratulate an organisation dealing with homelessness on being in existence for so long. I am not sure if "congratulate" is the right term because I imagine its representatives would like to see an end to their jobs. The Simon Communities of Ireland is a recognisable brand and very visible to the general public.

It is very worrying to hear that no service level agreements for 2010 are in place. I have limited experience of working with homeless people. Homeless people are a crisis-driven people and the present crisis is not good for them or for the service provided by the Simon Communities of Ireland. A great deal of restructuring has taken place as a result of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2008. Much of it has been positive but much is unknown territory. I wonder where the restructuring in the Dublin area, which has been the most significant in the country, will lead us. As Ms Colette Kelleher said, an "unlabelling" process is taking place at the moment and I am very worried that it will lead to an unsupportive environment. The one thing research has shown over and over again is that homeless people need multiple supports to move from a crisis-driven night shelter and other emergency accommodation to long-term independent living.

Another concern is the potential for a "NAMA-fication" of housing policy. Organisations such as the housing and sustainable community agency may look at what role they may play in the assets the State acquires. In Dublin, homeless people are being fast-tracked into long-term lease arrangements. They are then designated as housed and the middle-level supports required may be lost as a result. The fear is that the State will focus on the need to fill the vacant units it acquires rather than on the needs of the client group with which the Simon Communities of Ireland work.

It is very worrying that service plans are not in place and, like its client group, the Simon Communities of Ireland do not know where they will be next year. Recent cutbacks mean shelters are turning people away from their doors. People are sleeping on the streets because insufficient beds are available and this committee needs to be attentive to that. We appreciate that the Simon Communities of Ireland have brought it to our attention and we must put pressure on the Minister and his Department to get the service level agreement concluded as soon as possible.

Ms Colette Kelleher

Senator Hannigan asked whether alcohol and drugs were cause or effect. They are a mixture of both and it depends on the individual. The longer a person stays in an uncertain situation the likelier it is for an addiction to take over. It becomes harder and harder for a person to break an addiction but the Dublin Simon Community has had great results from its detox unit. Other Simon Communities would also recognise that stability in housing helps to address addiction. If a person does not know where he or she will be staying on any given night it is almost impossible to address an addiction. We also operate a harm reduction model for people who drink spirits heavily or use certain drugs, in which we advise them on a better mix and encourage them to eat more healthily and to access health services. Sometimes people are not ready to address profound addiction issues but if they are in a context of stability there is a chance they will begin to reduce the harm and address their addictions. That is a big thing even for people in the most stable of circumstances, as we all have friends or family members who are addressing addictions. They have far more resources than those with whom we work so it is a major task.

The Senator also asked about the match between the available housing stock and the single males with whom we predominantly work. Organisations such as ours have to generate the right match in this regard and the CAS scheme was very important in enabling us to create housing units that worked. We found that small was beautiful in this regard so, for example, units of six or seven flats were built in Cork city. Outside the city, such units were not so successful because of loneliness or isolation. The refurbishment of old houses has a multiplier effect on the economy. However, we are concerned that the CAS scheme will not be as readily available as in the past. We are also concerned about matching property to need in respect of empty properties in country towns such as Rathcormac in Cork. If we gave sets of keys to all the 44 people in our shelter tonight for a house in Rathcormac I assure members that, by the end of the month, the same people would be back in the clinic having fallen into difficulties. One needs the kind of housing that works but the match is not right at the moment.

Mr. Niall Mulligan

I will address some of Senator Hannigan's questions, in particular on the number of people with whom we work in the Dundalk Simon Community. The prevention service has been up and running since July 2007 and so far we have worked with 36 people on a variety of interventions. To the best of my knowledge none has become homeless. They have managed to maintain their tenancies or move from an unsuitable tenancy to one that is more suitable to meet their needs.

We have two projects which provide emergency accommodation. There is a night shelter which opens at 9 p.m. and closes at 9 a.m., and 86 people used the service in 2008. If it was not there those people would have had to sleep on the streets of Dundalk or in other towns in Louth and the north east. We also have a long-stay community house in which people, in line with Government policy, stay for no longer than six months. Between 120 and 130 people stay there per year and the average length of stay is ten or 12 weeks, but some have been there for as long as I have been there, or longer, and I have been working in the Dundalk centre for three years. I suspect they will be there after I leave, though I hope not.

The emergency facility was 94% full last year and I suspect the figure will be higher this year.

Senator Dominic Hannigan

It has approximately 20 beds.

Mr. Niall Mulligan

There are 25 beds in the community house and seven in the Gatehouse project. Last year 35 people moved through our settlement process and gained a home of their own in the Louth area. We also offer support to people who have moved out over the years, and there are 65 such people with needs ranging from low to high. We may visit a person once a month while we will see others every second week and we will visit some of them every day if it is necessary to maintain their premises.

We get referrals from Meath, Cavan and Monaghan, but our largest number are from the Louth area. We have colleagues in Drogheda who are not part of the Simon Communities and they probably work with more people from Meath than we do, for the obvious geographical reasons.

I am a member of the north-east regional drugs task force and we have been arguing for two or three years for a link with homeless forums. The Simon Communities sit on the Louth homeless forum and the local co-ordinator on the Meath forum has been in touch with Meath County Council and has been told he is pushing an open door. There will be no problem in establishing closer links but I do not know when it will happen. I am not sure about Cavan and Monaghan. We have been in touch but have not received a response as of yet.

Deputy Brady mentioned two staff members of Meath County Council and I know them well. They are excellent people. As part of the last homeless action plan we negotiated a plan whereby Louth County Council and Dundalk would allocate 4% of all their local authority properties per year to homeless services. We are renegotiating the allocation for the next homeless action plan but it has served us well. It means that 4% of any development comes to us if we need it.

Deputy Johnny Brady

That percentage is a bit small. It should be nearer 10%.

Mr. Niall Mulligan

Yes, but we were happy to get it in the plan. I also take the Deputy's point on one-bed flatlets. It is great that people get a place of their own and single bed occupancy serves a purpose in that regard but none of us really lives on our own. We think it is an achievement for people to live on their own but unless there is a support network around them there is a strong likelihood that they will return to our emergency facilities. Day centres and other facilities exist to support people in such circumstances.

Chairman

The authorities in Laois, Offaly and other midlands counties are very happy with the supported housing services. Do the people in supported housing remain there forever? When Simon Communities move into an area is there a tendency on the part of local authorities to take a stricter line with anti-social tenants, threatening to put them out of local authority housing and send them to the Simon Community? I am beginning to detect a tendency along those lines. Does the Simon Community deal with Travellers? Where do they fit into the mix?

Deputy Eamon Scanlon

There seems to be a lot of emphasis on Cork. I come from Sligo-Leitrim, where there are no visible signs of homelessness but the witnesses said they provide services in the north west. What do they do there? How many beds does the Simon Community have in Dublin? One hears that some people sleep rough when there are beds available. Is that the case? Are there enough beds for the people who sleep rough in Dublin?

Mr. Sam McGuinness

For the past three, four or five years we had a cold weather strategy which opened up other overflow hostels and none of them has closed. That is why we only have night shelters. The 17-bed shelter we opened in Island House two years ago was in response to the cold weather strategy and has not yet closed. Another in Dún Laoghaire provided 11 beds and is still open. All our shelters and hostels are full to capacity. We counted 29 people sleeping on the street this morning. Were they seasoned rough sleepers? Some would have been but some were there for the night because they had nowhere else and there are many more people in that category. A recent newspaper article stated that the number of new homeless people has increased significantly.

We have a 30-bed hostel on Harcourt Street near Copperface Jack's and more noise comes from the club than from our hostel, even though it hosts some of the most chaotic users of drugs. There is a needle exchange and it is a wet hostel. A majority of residents use methadone but we started an experiment two years ago of having two stabilisation beds to move people from the chaotic beds and this has brought about a degree of order. The two stabilisation beds have now moved to a unit where there are 19 such beds. We hope to get people in and work on them before they become seasoned rough sleepers. Otherwise, there is a tendency to develop "learned helplessness", such as we see with young children, on account of everything we do for them. On the streets, people learn behaviour contrary to what is learned elsewhere.

Another member asked about drinking alcohol and taking drugs on the street. Most people end up homeless because of loneliness, poor behaviour at home, bad relationships, etc. If people are on the street for long, they become unhealthy and undernourished. In weakness one does things they would not normally do. Some may share a bottle of something, injection or a pill, and gradually they become worn out and go downhill. They sleep rough because everybody else is doing it. It always takes someone to break the cycle. Recently, when that evaluation was done with the homelessness agency, it showed that it takes someone, usually a staff member of an emergency hostel that gets to the homeless person. That's what the staff are about. The staff are the people most relied on. They believe in the homeless people; they give them hope and then they can migrate. I am positive about the plan we have in Dublin. It is critical that it succeeds. Without the plan, An tSlí, without the leasing and the move on it will not work. The move on has been an issue all over the country.

An tSlí will work in Dublin because we will use the emergency money we had to fund it in order to have the supports we spoke about. Without those supports people will slip out of places. The focus now is that instead of holding people for long periods in alien places where they have a licence agreement, we should be able to give them levels of treatment and support as they move somewhere, and then give them a proper tenancy. When people have responsibility for a proper tenancy it is amazing what a difference it makes. Some of my colleagues recently met a person who was homeless for 15 years. She was a chaotic alcoholic, but is now on the board of Dublin Simon. She attended a service-user convention in Amsterdam recently. She is just like the rest of us, except that she cannot afford to drink. We can all go down and we can all come up. It can happen.

It is a bit two-faced of me to sit here saying that we have a plan, because we have the homeless agency and we all work together and it is challenging. My next concern is that when we come to the next stage, "The Way Home" strategy needs the same push. We need the strengths of the homeless agency and the rest of us working together to move forward. However, the strengths of that agency have now been subsumed by three organisations that are probably approaching their end of life stage, rather than a new future. This committee needs to pay a great deal of attention to that because we could lose what we have gained so far in terms of "The Way Home". This strategy, "The Way Home" does not have the day-to-day monitoring we have on the work plan with the homeless agency. It will never have it without the first sense of the objectives and plans of this new agency to advise and do research. It is not much of a job description. The new agency is only emerging, but it is critical that it should have responsibility for homelessness. It should be clear that it has responsibility for "The Way Home" programme. Without that, all the things we are doing and which we hope to achieve by the end of 2010 will be lost.

Ms Colette Kelleher

It can be a home for life for people if they need it, but equally it does not have to be the end of the line for those who are able to move on to further independence.

Chairman

Are they eligible to go back on the social housing list afterwards?

Ms Colette Kelleher

Absolutely. I am thinking of one individual who is blind. He uses a zimmer frame and has diabetes in addition to kidney difficulties. I do not think he will move into independent living, but there are others for whom that is a possibility. We would always support that, but it is important that this kind of housing is part of the mix. One of our concerns is the focus on people living in flats on their own because the need for supported housing is missed out for that vulnerable group. It is more expensive, which is obviously why it is under scrutiny, but it is absolutely necessary, otherwise people will get stuck. Mr. Mulligan described the awful situation of that man who is almost 80, living his life out in an emergency shelter, which should only be for a minimal amount of time. People like that should have access to supported housing. We have five such houses in Cork, as well as a shelter and people living independently. That mix is needed and it is important to hold on to it.

Chairman

On any given night, how many people would Simon cater for in total, including supported housing, hostels, and so on?

Ms Colette Kelleher

In Cork?

Chairman

No, nationwide.

Ms Colette Kelleher

Five thousand people through the year. That is not necessarily every night. In Cork we have 115 beds, but we reached 850 people in the course of a year. That is the difference because we have a high turnover of people.

Mr. Sam McGuinness

We would be on the street for most of the night. There is tenancy sustainment in the morning, so there is a great deal of street work in Dublin with people who are on the street as well as those in accommodation.

Ms Niamh Randall

I wanted to highlight the fact that there is a huge data deficit, not only in terms of the number of homeless people across the country, but in terms of the profile of such people. It is quite complex, but the housing needs assessment happens every three years. In Dublin, the counted-in process happened in 2002, 2005 and 2008. There is a commitment that in 2010 there will be one which will include Galway, Cork and Limerick, which it did in 2008. We are happy to hear that, so at least we will have an idea of the number of homeless people. We would argue, however, that counted-in should happen around the whole country every year, so we would at least have the numbers who are moving into and out of homelessness. In the current recessionary climate, more people will turn to our services for support.

On health issues, including drug and alcohol use, the figures in Cork clearly highlight the high level of complex needs among people who use Simon's services. They are higher than the national data. We have 2005 figures from the national advisory committee on drugs, which indicate that approximately 25% to 50% of people have problematic drug use, while 29% to 51% are drinking above safe levels. The Cork figures are much higher than that, so we need some kind of response to target those with complex needs, otherwise we will not meet the 2010 commitments. Deputy Ciarán Lynch said that we should work to end our jobs. We are committed to the 2010 commitments and, to that effect, we are putting ourselves out of business.

Chairman

As there are no further questions, I thank the representatives of the Simon Communities of Ireland for appearing before the joint committee. It was a very interesting presentation which covered many issues. I thank the delegation for coming here. We found their contributions to be most informative.

The joint committee adjourned at 5.10 p.m. until 3.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 November 2009.