JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT, CULTURE AND THE GAELTACHT debate -
Tuesday, 18 Oct 2011

Accommodation for the Homeless: Discussion

Chairman

I welcome Mr. Mike Allen from Focus Ireland, Ms Caroline Fahey from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Ms Niamh Randall, national research and policy manager for the Simon Communities of Ireland, and Mr. Bob Jordan from Threshold. I thank them for their attendance.

I draw to the attention of witnesses that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give to this committee. If witnesses are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence in relation to a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Before I call on the witnesses to speak I wish to make a few preliminary comments on the presentation on homelessness this evening. The reasons for people becoming homeless are varied and not simply due to a lack of accommodation. Each homeless person has a different history that has brought him or her on to the streets and the problems he or she faces in life can often be almost insurmountable and will not be solved by simply providing emergency or medium-term housing, as recent research by the Simon Community and Good Shepherd Convent, Cork, has shown. The problem of homelessness is therefore often only resolved on a case by case basis, with a broader holistic approach being provided with the individual involved playing a part and by moving from emergency housing into longer-term sustainable housing approaches.

I compliment the organisations appearing before us today on the care and comfort they have given for so many years to those in our society who have not benefited the same as others. By providing accommodation and by reaching out, they have helped many people. The Simon Community's soup run is a perfect example of interacting with people on the streets, providing tea and sandwiches and, more important, someone to talk to. I know that the other organisations before us do similar work on a daily basis. The existence of such organisations is a sign of a caring society. I commend them on their commitment and thank them for appearing before the joint committee today.

I now invite Mr. Allen to address the joint committee.

Mr. Mike Allen

Ms Fahey will make the presentation on behalf of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Ms Caroline Fahey

We thank the joint committee for the opportunity to appear before it this afternoon. The four organisations present work together on some of the issues being discussed today. Many of them are shared issues across the four organisations and we appreciate the opportunity to talk about them with members of the joint committee. I will set the context, following which my colleagues, Ms Niamh Randall will speak about health and related needs in regard to homelessness, Mr. Allen will speak about homelessness and housing and Mr. Bob Jordan will speak about the private rented sector and its role in addressing homelessness and the current review of the homeless strategy.

Many members will be aware that the national homeless strategy and implementation plan was welcomed by all four organisations, as was the commitment to end long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough, which, unfortunately, we did not meet before the end of 2010. We are heartened that those commitments are reiterated in the programme for Government and that the homeless strategy is being reviewed. One of the changes in the past number of years is that poverty has become a much more important factor in the risk of homelessness, in particular for people who have experienced homelessness before but also for people who are vulnerable to becoming homeless owing to debt and other pressures which they would not have faced in the past.

I will now set out what is happening in organisations working in this area. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul last year saw an average increase of 35% in requests for its help across the country. There was an 18% increase in the number of customers Focus Ireland helped between 2009 and 2010. The Dublin Simon Community increased its bed capacity by almost 30%. Merchants Quay Ireland reported an increase of 38% in the interventions it provides, including key working, helping people to access social welfare and to keep in touch with friends and family.

The most recent Counted In report found that 16% of users of homeless services in Dublin were non-Irish nationals, pointing to the type of difficulties that exist around the habitual residence condition, which I will talk about a little later. Our organisations and services are responding to increased needs. However, prevention and early intervention is key if we are to address the problem of homelessness.

Ms Niamh Randall

I thank the joint committee for the opportunity to appear before it today. As mentioned by Ms Fahey, I will speak about homelessness, health and related needs. Members will be already aware that there are a number of different reasons for homelessness. Generally, the causes lie in structural issues such as poverty, social exclusion and disadvantage and personal factors or triggers such as unemployment, personal crisis, mental health issues and so on. Our experience, across our shared services, has been that once a person becomes homeless the deterioration in their physical and mental health can be rapid and debilitating. This means a range of issues are experienced by people who use our services, including physical health issues, mental health issues, drug and alcohol issues and, for some, a combination of some or all of these issues.

The Chairman referred already to our recent health snapshot study which we undertook in July 2011, which contains some stark figures. I will not go through all of them in detail except to say that 603 people who use Simon services around the country were involved. Members will see from the slide that physical health issues are at 65%, mental health issues are at 47%, alcohol abuse is at 50% and drug abuse is at 31%. As is evident, people are experiencing a lot of issues and are very vulnerable. We have found that issues need to be dealt with simultaneously. This means we need a range of specialist services and improved access to mainstream services. The range of services of which we are speaking are health services, physical health services, mental health services and drug and alcohol services. Inter-agency working is critical, as is interdisciplinary working, to address these issues. We also need access to appropriate housing with support and high support housing for some.

In addition, it is important there is improved interdepartmental working between the Departments of the Environment, Community and Local Government and Health, the local authorities and the HSE, which has a dual responsibility in this area. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has responsibility in respect of the provision of accommodation, and issues for people who are homeless and the HSE and Department of Health have responsibility in respect of health and social care issues.

Mr. Mike Allen

I thank the joint committee for inviting us to appear before it today. I will speak specifically about the housing dimension of homelessness. As the Chairman pointed out, there are many causes which lead people to experience homelessness. Every solution always involves a house or home. Houses are absolutely essential to any solution to homelessness but are not sufficient in themselves. The supports which a person, family or household gets following settlement into a new home are crucial for sustaining that.

Historically, homeless persons are seen as objects of charity or as suffering from a condition which would be hard to change. Our job is to manage homelessness and to make it less of a problem for those who experience it. During the past decade or so, there has been strong growth in the view that homelessness, in particular long-term homelessness which is homelessness for longer than six months, can and should be ended. Ireland has led the way in this type of thinking. All political parties, Independents and voluntary organisations have shifted to that view of homelessness, which has led to the type of language used in the programme for Government, for example, housing first or increasingly housing-led policies. In providing a home and supports for a person long-term homelessness can be ended. That applies right across the board and not only in respect of people who are housing ready. Obviously, this puts much pressure on in regard to the types of supports to be provided. However, all discussion of supports is irrelevant if there are not houses available in the first instance.

In Dublin and, increasingly across the country, there has been a reconfiguration of homeless services, away from managing homelessness and the commitment to end long-term homelessness by 2010. As such, people will experience homelessness for a much shorter period and our energies will then be on prevention and in supporting people in homes. That was not achieved. However, reconfiguration has occurred. It is important to recognise that there has been a change in services. That view of homelessness is not alone better for the individual because it reflects the deep human need for a home but it is also cheaper. It is important to emphasise these days that emergency accommodation, in particular private emergency accommodation in which many people in Dublin live, is an expensive way of addressing this problem. Getting people into homes is cheaper and better for the individual.

The crisis in delivery of social housing, which is the result of the economic crisis in the State, presents a major challenge to moving forward on the homeless strategy. Members from Dublin constituencies will be aware of the 2010 target to find 1,200 new homes for homeless people in Dublin. Members may also be aware of that as it received much publicity. The slide I am now showing indicates from where that figure came. The most recent Counted In survey shows that 2,144 households were homeless in 2006, in respect of whom there were some allocations from the four local authorities in 2008 and 2009. There were also just over 400 households living in accommodation with the wrong type of lease and, as such, they were homeless. When those leases were changed, they were okay. The original target of 1,200 was to be achieved in 2008 and 2009. However, it was not achieved in the first two years and was then set as the target for 2010. We have failed to achieve this and to end long-term homelessness, thus putting the strategy for tackling homeless in crisis.

The next slide shows some of the background to what I mean by a crisis in the delivery of social housing. Members will note that over that period - excluding RAS figures which are legitimately called social housing but are less relevant for moving people out of homelessness - there was a huge decline in the number of social houses provided. The last figure shows that if nationally 3,360 social houses were provided in 2010, the aspiration was that one-third of social houses provided in the entire State should be provided to the homeless in Dublin, which gives an indication of the challenge that existed and continues to face us. There is no reason to believe that the number of households which are homeless is significantly smaller now than it was in 2008. Therefore, if we want to move the large number of long-term homeless people into housing we need to have a supply of social housing in the broadest sense. This means we need to boost social housing provision beyond what it is at present. As the committee is aware, this is a major challenge because of the limitations on local authorities and the capacity of voluntary housing associations to rise to the challenge. We also need to ensure a significant proportion of what becomes available goes to people moving out of homelessness. This is a significant political challenge for all public representatives, as other people on the list would find themselves waiting longer than they otherwise would. If this challenge is not faced those most in need will be consigned to living in emergency accommodation for a long time at great expense.

The housing support system available in Dublin, the support to live independent scheme, SLI, needs to be made available nationwide. Local authorities, voluntary housing bodies and private landlords are uncomfortable accepting people moving out of homelessness unless they know support is there. Support makes a difference and should be available nationwide.

Many challenges face us but the consequence of not rising to these challenges and having a coherent strategy to provide exit routes from homelessness will be a return to periodic crises in homelessness every time the weather gets cold. As has happened in the past, the front pages of the newspapers will have stories about people dying on the streets. This would have a massive financial cost as well as the cost of people's lives. With regard to social housing, part of the picture must be a contribution from the private rental sector. My colleague, Mr. Bob Jordan, will address this aspect.

Mr. Bob Jordan

I am aware the private rental sector got a good airing two weeks ago at a previous meeting of the committee so I will not rehearse all of the points made then. The point is that local authority housing is regarded as the gold standard for people coming out of homelessness. Unfortunately, homelessness is itself a symptom of a failure of the social housing system, in the sense that very little single person accommodation is available in the form of local authority housing. This has led to people living in the private rental sector. The question is whether we can harness the private rental sector to ensure it provides good quality long-term accommodation for people coming out of homelessness. Threshold has experience in this as since 2003 we have moved with success more than 500 homeless people from homeless hostels and shelters into the private rental sector.

People speak about the issues homeless people have, such as addiction and behavioural issues, but approximately 70% of homeless households can live in mainstream housing with support, and it is more of a housing issue than anything else. The recent housing policy statement from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government looks more towards a tenure-neutral system but stated the importance of a well-regulated private rental sector. We want to ensure such regulation benefits people who are homeless.

Improvements have been made in the private rental sector and it is not like the old days. More landlords than ever are registered and tenants have more security. There is also a purpose-built dispute resolution body in the form of the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB. While it is not perfect it has made a difference in important issues relating to homelessness such as illegal eviction. However, the picture is not perfect. At the committee meeting two weeks ago, we spoke about deposits. Rental deposits may seem unconnected from people sleeping on the streets but rental deposits represents their life savings to people on a very low income. It is not something they can replace and people become homeless because of the loss of the deposit. It is also a reputational issue for the private rental sector and needs to be sorted out.

A more important issue is that of standards in the private rental sector. At the committee meeting two weeks ago, the PRTB acknowledged that 34% of landlords in receipt of rent supplements are not registered with it. A study conducted two years ago showed approximately four out of every five rent supplement properties in Dublin were below standard. The standards regulations for private rental accommodation are good but enforcement is required.

In making the private rental sector fit for people coming out of homelessness the issue of standards need to be addressed. The private rental sector needs a self-certification scheme. In the same way that before one drives a car it needs to pass an NCT or before one can eat in a restaurant it needs to have achieved a hygiene and health certificate, a landlord should have a certificate stating the accommodation is fit for the purpose of renting. The onus should be put on landlords to do this, and local authorities should systematically examine older and neglected properties to support the system. This would bootstrap the private rental sector and bring it up to scratch. Rent supplement should not be paid on any property unless it is proved it is up to scratch. A lacuna exists between what the PRTB does and what local authorities do with regard to standards. The PRTB probably needs its own inspectorate so when a dispute arises it can send out inspectors to examine the matter.

We move people out of homeless hostels and shelters into the private rental sector using the rent supplement scheme but this flies in the face of the scheme as it is designed at present and we are swimming upstream. When the scheme is transferred to local authorities we want homeless people to be a priority rather than an exception that needs to be made so they can be moved as quickly as possible into the private rental sector. They should receive higher quality accommodation from the outset and not have to jump from a bedsit into better quality accommodation several years later. Rent supplement should be paid directly to landlords as this would attract more landlords into the scheme and would maintain the security of people who are homeless.

What is most important, as has been mentioned, is support. We call it "tenancy sustainment" and it means visiting people in their homes to ensure unpaid bills are not lying around and that they connect with the medical, educational and training services available to them to ensure they succeed in their tenancy. Proof exists that this works. Nevertheless, certain people will need other forms of supported accommodation with 24-hour care. We call for sufficient suitable housing to be made available. This should be ring-fenced accommodation from local authorities and voluntary housing bodies, and the private rental sector should be made fit for purpose. Those who need visiting support and longer-term support should be provided with it.

The issue of prevention is very important. In the current economic climate more pressure is put on homeless services. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and housing advice has a key role to play in this. Certain policies fly in the face of the national homeless policy and the habitual residence condition is one example. People are denied services and end up on the streets or dealing with voluntary organisations but do not have State-funded support.

Every year we need a national count of people who are homeless so we know where we stand. We also need quarterly reports on progress towards the target in the national homeless strategy. The 2010 target was missed, for which many reasons exist. We need to set a new target of 2013 to end long-term homelessness.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

The mix of housing preferred by local authorities was mentioned. Is this preference not understandable? My experience is that predominantly they prefer two and three bed units because families with children tend to seek accommodation and the amount of one bed accommodation is at the lower end. I presume the profile of homeless people shows that by and large they are single. The housing mix is wrong but this is dictated by the Department and this is somewhat circular. A change made in this will require a change in the housing type. I presume this would have to be Government policy or Government led. Do not get me wrong, one person sleeping rough is one too many but the pressure on the lists at present is appalling. The pressure on families of constantly moving on creates conflicts in terms of the problems presented later. I am trying to visualise who will drive this change. The people I have come across who may be living in a shelter and are trying to move from homelessness to rented accommodation have difficulty with the deposit. The landlord will not sign off on it without a deposit and, unless something is signed, the prospective tenant cannot get the deposit. One can be going around in circles for months. Is this a general pattern or something only I have come across? This must be overcome.

What kind of support is available in Dublin that is not available elsewhere? What does the package look like? Most of the homelessness from the counties surrounding Dublin will present in Dublin rather than the surrounding counties. If extra support and shelters are available, people will turn up there.

Mr. Bob Jordan

Regarding the housing mix, local authorities provide family-sized accommodation. This is the issue we have. There is some single person accommodation and this must be ring-fenced for the homeless. In 2009, the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act defined the private rented sector for the first time as social housing support. If it is defined as social housing, it must be as good as local authority housing. The accommodation is provided by private landlords so it needs to be regulated properly. The main issue concerns standards and landlords being legally compliant. We do not have a problem with the private sector providing social housing as long as it is as good as what one would get from a local authority. That is the challenge.

Deputy Murphy's point about deposits is correct. There is an issue concerning the rent supplement scheme and there is a reason many landlords are not interested in providing accommodation under the rent supplement scheme. Rent is paid in arrears rather than in advance and it is difficult to get deposits. There is a sub-market within the private rented sector and, unfortunately, that market tends to have older properties and a certain type of landlord who is willing to come around on Thursday and take €24 from the tea caddy. Most professional landlords are not willing to do that. Ireland does not have many professional landlords. We have people in full-time employment who have invested in property. If we want to make the entire private rented sector open to people who are homeless, one must change how the rent supplement scheme works. Now that it is coming within the ambit of the local authorities, there is a good opportunity to design this in a way that ensures homeless people get access to the best accommodation and not the worst.

Mr. Mike Allen

Deputy Catherine Murphy is correct that the vast majority of homeless people are single. It is not just local authorities that do not provide sufficient amounts of such housing. I refer to the housing the voluntary bodies can lease under the new capital advance leasing facility, CALF, scheme. Focus Ireland tries to engage with the scheme and we have regularly done reviews of how many one-bedroom flats in Dublin are available within the scheme. Virtually none is available in areas that are acceptable for social housing. The Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency is currently reviewing the NAMA properties to see what is available. We are awaiting the outcome to find out whether there is suitable housing in that stock for this purpose. Then there is the subsequent question of getting access to it. The first question is whether any of it is the sort for which we wish.

One of the supports available is support to live independently, SLI, a scheme that has been talked about for two years. Dublin Simon Community was the first organisation to deliver it in Dublin and Focus Ireland is now delivering it. When the local authority allocates from the homeless list in Dublin City Council, it also allocates a support worker who works with approximately 20 people at any given time and is expected to support the person for six months while he or she settles into the home. The support provided includes working with the individual prior to the move, talking about responsibilities and the routines of maintaining a home, and keeping regular engagement over that time. Within that, there is provision that, if the need exists for longer than six months and there is a risk of tenancy breaking down, there is a capacity to review and extend the support. None of the Focus Ireland customers has reached that point but the Dublin Simon Community is happy that this aspect is reflected and that support can be continued. Only the four local authorities in Dublin run the scheme, although it is notionally set up as a national scheme. The regional homeless fora are supposed to drive this forward so that it is available wherever it is needed. We hope it will be more widely available next year.

Ms Niamh Randall

SLI was originally designed to meet low to medium support needs. The division in the Dublin area is defining support in terms of low, medium and high support needs. The experience of the Dublin Simon Community is that the people it works with need medium or high support needs rather than what was originally envisaged. That has been an interesting lesson learned along the way. In addition, a pilot programme in the Dublin area is working specifically with those who have higher support needs to wrap a package of support around that individual. That is in the early stages and my understanding is that the interdisciplinary working has been difficult because it involves working across a range of disciplines, such as mental health expertise and drug and alcohol issues. We will look at this to see its findings and we are anxious that programmes such as SLI and the high support housing model are rolled out nationally.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Having many people homeless is one of the greatest tragedies in any society and that brings problems. I was on the local authority for many years. We received a document that homelessness would be ended by 2010. We all thought it would not happen and little has happened as a result. I hope the target we set for 2013 takes into account the fact that we failed in delivering the earlier target. We need to be careful in our approach to this.

Increasingly, I notice more families coming on stream. I suspect it is due to the downturn and people getting themselves into debt. It possibly includes people who came to this country from elsewhere and find themselves caught in this situation. The witnesses referred to a high number of single males but perhaps there has been an increase in the number of families presenting themselves as a result of negative equity or banks moving against them.

On Dublin City Council, the general rule for homelessness was that one had to be on the list for three or four years before being housed. That was how it was for a long time but now we are more inclined to push people forward towards rent subsidy. That is a sign of failure on our behalf because we need to produce more social housing and more schemes where there are facilities and an ability to deliver special services within those schemes. From my experience with Focus Ireland in Aylward Green in Finglas, permanent and temporary housing is available. That has more or less worked for people living in temporary housing who can be moved on after a period. Others live in the permanent section and this division seems to have worked well. There are all sorts of problems when one is dealing with homeless people. Putting people into isolated accommodation in the private rental sector is not ideal. The delegates referred to the support to live independently, SLI, scheme, but would it not be more effective if that were more focused in housing estates, with several houses together, rather than focusing on separate residences? In regard to NAMA and ghost estates, could any of these properties be made available to local authorities?

We have a particular problem in Dublin in that a substantial number of the homeless are directed towards Dublin City Council, and to inner city areas in particular. I would like to see an increased provision of facilities in the suburbs. What are the delegates' views on how that can be done?

Mr. Mike Allen

In regard to targets, there is clearly a dilemma. Advocates and Opposition spokespeople tend to demand targets which, when they are given to them, are used to beat up officials and the Government. When the targets are not met, Governments and officials are inevitably reluctant to set further targets. From Focus Ireland's point of view, in terms of the targets for 2010, while it is true that we did not achieve the goals, the pressure that was placed on us as a consequence of having the targets in place meant that many issues were moved forward which would not otherwise have progressed at this very difficult time in the country's history.

In terms of a target for 2013, we are not asking the Government to put up a flag pole so that we can fire at it. Rather, we must have a target which has been agreed upon by the voluntary organisations, local authorities and the State and which we will work together to achieve. That approach facilitates a political context in which a very serious and intractable problem has the potential to be solved. On the other hand, if the Government does not set a new target, it is essentially reverting to the situation in the 1990s where homelessness was effectively off the agenda. It is very important that we take a proactive approach rather than merely saying we will come back in 2013 and see how we got on. There must be key performance indicators, monthly monitoring and so on.

On the issue of where people should be housed, having clusters of people allows the support services to work much more effectively than in the case of isolated groups. There are issues regarding attitudes to density of social housing which must be reviewed in terms of where we are now. There is a great fear of creating another Ballymun and also probably a misinterpretation of what went wrong in that instance. It seems there are two types of areas in Dublin where one cannot have social housing, namely, areas where there is an attitude of "we are not like that around here" and areas where there is already too much social housing. That can be a serious problem in terms of identifying areas in which people can be housed.

Ms Niamh Randall

All of our experience in working towards the 2010 targets has pointed to the absence of key performance indicators, clear ongoing timeframes and effective monitoring. One of the issues we would strongly advocate is that there be quarterly reports on achieving performance indicators and clear reporting procedures in that regard.

On the tendency of homelessness to be clustered in urban areas, there has traditionally been a convergence of homeless people on urban centres not only in Ireland but internationally. All of our organisations are working in different parts of the country, in both urban and rural areas, and one of the challenges has been our chequered experience in terms of the regional fora. Some are meeting very regularly and others hardly at all. We would strongly advocate that all such fora meet on a regular basis.

On Deputy Ellis's specific question in regard to Dublin, the Dublin Simon Community also works in Wicklow and Kildare, which is challenging, in co-operation with all the key partners in those areas.

Ms Caroline Fahey

On the question of whether the profile of people presenting for assistance is changing, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's homeless services in Dublin deal mostly with the provision of emergency accommodation for single men. However, the people requesting help at our regional offices are mostly families with children, in particular one-parent families, so we can surmise they are close to the edge and require support. Many of them are living in poor-quality accommodation in the private rental sector.

Mr. Bob Jordan

There are two issues in respect of targets. First is the ending of long-term homelessness, which is the overarching objective, but there are also process targets within that in terms of seeking to ensure people do not sleep rough or do not spend more than six months in emergency accommodation before being moved on. The entire system is changing to recognise what is and is not acceptable for the future. For example, we will no longer accept people spending decades in emergency accommodation. That is a significant change.

It is true that most homeless services are clustered within Dublin city centre. In the past some local authorities' homeless strategy consisted of giving people their bus fare to the city. Thankfully, that has changed in recent years and there is an acknowledgement that, especially in the face of NIMBYism, keeping homeless people within their local area - where it is possible to do so and is not detrimental to the individual's safety - is preferable because it allows them to be reintegrated with their families within a familiar community. They are less likely to get caught up in some of the activities that might tempt them in the city centre.

In regard to the rental subsidy, we are all agreed that local authority housing is the gold standard, but the reality is that people are homeless because that has not worked. One of the advantages of the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, is that people can retain that support if they secure employment or take up a training opportunity. There was evidence before the recession that some 20% of participants in the RAS had engaged in some level of employment, which they would not have done under the poverty trap of rent supplement.

Although we missed the target of 2010 the situation is not entirely hopeless. However, we are in the midst of the worst recession in our history. Setting a new target will, as Mr. Allen said, focus minds on at least making further gains in the next three years.

Deputy Terence Flanagan

I welcome the representatives from the four homeless agencies and commend them on the great work they do. This meeting is timely given the recent advent of harsher weather. We all have great sympathy for those who find themselves sleeping rough in those types of conditions.

Regarding the Government review of the homeless strategy, what do the delegates expect to come out of that? Have they received any initial feedback? What do they hope to see emerging from it? There was a strategy shift under the previous Government away from emergency accommodation and towards a greater integration into society. However, there has been a certain degree of row-back in terms of what was initially promised. Will the delegates comment on how people who have moved out of emergency accommodation are coping? Are sufficient supports in place and are they succeeding in getting their lives together?

On statistics, different numbers are thrown up all the time. One of the slides indicated that 1,200 homes are needed in Dublin. What is the nationwide figure? I understand the delegates are looking to get a yearly count of the situation. Is there any progress in that regard?

Bed and breakfast facilities are used regularly for emergency accommodation. There has been a great deal of negative feedback in the media in regard to the operation of the care system for children and directed at the HSE employees and social workers involved. Can the delegates offer an assurance that some of the mistakes that occurred in the past will not be repeated and that adequate supervisions are in place for any parentless or homeless child?

In terms of all the authorities and agencies responsible for this area including the Health Service Executive, the Department of Health, the local authorities and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, how often do the representatives as a unit liaise with them on the need to resolve this issue? There is huge political will to do that, although it is difficult in these constrained economic times, but we all want to see a situation where everybody who needs a home has a roof over his or her head.

Ms Niamh Randall

Regarding our interface, at a national level there is the national homeless consultative committee, NHCC, and the cross-departmental team, CDT. Something we have been highlighting since the start of this year is the absence of those meetings. There was a changeover in terms of Government and officialdom but something we are anxious to reinforce is the importance of the NHCC and the CDT meeting with partners such as ourselves and the other partners across the board on a more regular basis. We would suggest that be done on a quarterly basis. We also suggest that there should be clear reporting in advance of these meetings to ensure that everybody is clear on what he or she is responding to at the meetings. That would be a positive development in that regard.

On the homeless strategy review and our hopes in that regard, we alluded to some of those in our presentation and on the availability of appropriate housing but what we have experienced is bottlenecking in that the accommodation has not come on board. The real challenge is to facilitate access to the appropriate accommodation with the necessary supports to help people move out of homelessness for the long term.

Mr. Bob Jordan

In terms of how people are faring, that is a good question. The reality is that tenancy sustainment does work in terms of visiting support to people and people also having someone to call up when things start to go wrong for them. There is a mismatch, however, between the way the funding is designed for that and what happens in practice. The way the system is currently designed is that people are given support for six months on a tapered basis but the experience in reality is that people have episodic needs, in other words, things are going fairly well and then a crisis of one sort or another arises, whether it is to do with an addiction, a family issue or somebody having a hard time and the funding system must match that. The organisations will pick up the slack anyway but that should be acknowledged in the overall system of funding.

The funding for homelessness comes from what is called section 10 funding which was introduced in the Housing Act 1988. Section 10 funding is almost exclusively focused on emergency accommodation. We have a strategy that has a big focus on prevention and on moving on and a recommendation this committee might consider is whether section 10 funding as it is currently designed meets the strategy because it appears to us that many of the mechanisms that could be put in place around prevention such as advice, advocacy and so on have no source of funding because that funding system is out-dated.

Mr. Mike Allen

To pick up on the question of the numbers, one of the many scandals in this area is that nobody knows. We talk about the Counted In survey, the most recent of which was in 2008. We say it should be done every year. It is meant to be tri-annual which means it should be done this year but there is no sign of it being done in Dublin, although there are signs in Cork, Limerick and Galway. It must be brought to attention that it needs to be done this year to ensure we have a consistent picture with previous years. There are other ways including the Homeless Executive's new pathway accommodation support system, PASS, but a consistent measurement is needed to allow us compare it with the one done on the previous occasion. That is a concern.

From what we can get from the housing need assessment, the 2008 Counted In survey and other sources, we consistently would talk about 5,000 people who are homeless across the country. That would be about 3,200 households, a large proportion of which are in Dublin. The absence of detail on that means that in trying to answer other questions such as the one asked by Deputy Ellis on whether more families are presenting, all one can give is an anecdotal feeling of what is coming to one's service and so on and that is not good enough for this committee or for us as a State to respond to the problems that exist.

Regarding the bed and breakfast facilities, I sense the Deputy was talking about the position of unattached homeless children. It is worth referring to the fact that in addition to the review of the adult strategy in the programme for Government, there is also a review of the youth and children homeless strategy going on in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in which we are involved. There are real concerns in that regard about resources and so on. That is probably a separate matter for a different committee but it is extremely important.

That said, there is a very large number of children of families who have been homeless for a very long period of time in private emergency accommodation. There have been many improvements in the way those children are treated in terms of supports and the interaction they get compared to the position many years ago but it is still an inadequate way of dealing with the problem. It is not a good place in which to grow up and that is an issue that must be addressed as a top priority.

On the question of what we expect will come out of the strategy, I do not know what we expect. We have indicated what we hope will come out of it. Much of the strategy is very good and we want that reinforced and the new Government to restate it as a collective approach, but with new time lines to make sure it is not just rhetoric.

Ms Niamh Randall

In terms of the Counted In survey, many members may be aware but in case they are not that has never been done on a national basis. It was done in Dublin in 2002, 2005 and 2008. In 2008 it was done also in the urban centres of Cork, Limerick and Galway. We would advocate that it be done on a national basis every year.

Deputy Gerald Nash

To pick up on that point, I find it surprising that the authorities who are responsible have not yet undertaken a comprehensive analysis of the acuteness of the problem. I would like to see the authorities getting a handle on the problem of those who are at risk of homelessness because if we do not get a clearer picture of that, we as legislators will find it very difficult to plan for the future. That is a related matter in respect of the Counted In survey.

All of us in this Chamber are well aware that there is a crisis in social housing provision. I would be interested to hear if the representatives of the agencies before the committee share my concerns and frustrations, which are probably held by most of us, about the fact that there appears to be little or no significant social dividend from the NAMA initiative. Those of us who found the NAMA initiative unpalatable at the least could settle on the idea that there might be some social dividend from it to deal with issues pertaining to social housing provision and our efforts to tackle the scourge of homelessness. If they agree that there has not been any significant social dividend, what do they believe must be done to ensure we get the sort of dividend we all want to see in regard to the provision of appropriate housing for those who are homeless, those at risk of homelessness and those on our social and affordable housing lists. How should that improve?

We have seen, by and large, local authorities across the country disengaging from the construction, delivery and management of social housing projects and a yawning gap now exists that must be filled. Who do the representatives believe is best placed to fill that gap if we accept the premise, and I am not saying I necessarily do, that local authorities, by and large, are moving away from the provision of traditional local authority housing?

Regarding private rented accommodation, the issue of the placing of deposits, particularly for those who are homeless, is difficult to accept. That is a high bar to set for anybody moving from homelessness to either a temporary or longer-term housing solution and it is an issue that must be addressed.

Equally, the enforcement of standards about which Mr. Jordan spoke is a cause of concern. During my career as a local authority member and a Deputy I visited dozens of flats, bed-sits and so on that were akin to slum-like dwellings. They were dives that should not be tolerated and certainly should not be funded by the taxpayer through the rent supplement scheme. We will not be able to deal with the situation overnight. I do not believe local authorities are sufficiently well resourced to conduct inspections to deal with the issue. I am attracted to the idea of self-regulation. Does that then imply tougher sanctions for errant landlords who are not achieving the standards required?

Mr. Bob Jordan

Yes, it does. We already have a self-certification scheme in the building regulations applying to energy labelling. We are suggesting it should be a condition of getting rent supplement that the following conditions are met: compliance with minimum standards; fire safety, which has been a big issue this week; tax compliance; and registration of tenancies, which happens one month after a tenancy is agreed. There should be a registration of properties for the rent supplement scheme. Obviously if the landlord does not have a certificate, he or she is prosecuted on the basis of not having a certificate. That is one function that local authorities could take on. Clearly local authorities can go after neglected or older properties and the local authority would know where to look for properties that are uncertified. In that way, the local authority inspection system would complement a certification system. With rent supplement going to local authorities, there is no place to hide. A local authority cannot be seen to be paying rent supplement on a property that does not meet legal standards. I understand there are discussions in local authorities about examining certification schemes. We would welcome the support of the committee for that, because it puts the expense where it belongs, namely, on the landlord who is benefiting handsomely from the rent supplement scheme.

Mr. Mike Allen

To be clear in relation to where we are in Dublin, the Homeless Executive indicated it did not want to do a traditional count, but move to using its new administrative system, Pathway Accommodation Support System, PASS, as the basis of the figure. We, the Homeless Network, indicated that we welcomed looking at the administrative data in PASS as they will give a great deal of useful information but there will be a significant gap after ten or 12 years of counting and suddenly discontinuing that methodology. The current situation is that the work plan for the Homeless Executive says it will sit down and discuss how it does that. It is now almost the end of October and if it is to be done, it would need to be done very soon. We are signalling that as a concern. Another grave concern is that the really important regular piece of data, instead of moving to a national and annual basis, as Ms Niamh Randall said, will not even be done in Dublin.

Mr. Brendan McDonagh spoke to the conference of the Irish Council for Social Housing in Galway a number of weeks ago. In the question and answer session, I asked whether the social dividend piece of the legislation, which was an amendment tabled by the then Opposition, had made a difference to the legislation. He essentially answered "No", in the sense that they would have done whatever they were going to do anyway. He clearly did not have any bite and everytime he spoke about what NAMA was doing, it was always in terms of the market and the taxpayer rather than the citizen and society. I do not think it is having the impact we were looking for.

It is very welcome that the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency is looking at the NAMA list. To have a public discussion involving elected representatives on the message it gives in terms of social housing will be crucial. If we do not get enough purchase, it would be worthwhile revisiting the legislation. Who will fill the gap? The policy is that if local authorities are not doing it, approved housing bodies will do it. That involves a significant process of stepping up to the plate by approved housing bodies. Approved housing bodies were delivering only about 2,000 units a year in the best year when they were getting more or less 100% capital funding. That has now fallen. Now that they will be getting up to 30% of the capital and must borrow the rest, there is a real question of capacity. Even if the big housing associations step up to the mark, as they are trying to do, Focus Ireland is one of the smaller in this regard, it is very hard to see the quantum we require generally for social housing, let alone to tackle the problem of homelessness, being delivered. We need more answers.

Ms Niamh Randall

In terms of the question of those at risk of homeless, that is a major concern in the current economic context for all of our organisations and people in general. Some of the data I presented earlier demonstrate the risk for individuals, in terms of the impact on people's physical and mental health and other risk behaviours around drug and alcohol use, and so on. One of the central tenets of the homeless strategy is around prevention. We would be anxious to reinforce the point that it is about preventing people becoming homeless in the first place, about preventing entrenched homelessness and also about preventing people returning to homelessness. When Deputy Flanagan asked about our hopes for the review of the strategy, we would hope that prevention would be an area that would be reinforced and reinvigorated.

Mr. Bob Jordan

That applies to us as well. With rent supplement being transferred to local authorities, it is now being acknowledged as a housing support rather than an income support. Therefore, I hope we will not have the situation in the future where people must present themselves to a landlord with a form in their hands and no money and declare their poverty in order to have their housing needs met. That is humiliating for them. We hope that the new system of rent supplement allows people to access the private rented sector as any other citizen would and the deposit should be provided in advance.

Chairman

Before I bring in other members, I have a number of questions. When I was elected in 2007, the most striking thing when I walked around Nassau Street and Kildare Street in the evening was the number of people living in the corridors and hallways of buildings and they are still living there. This afternoon is like a remanifestation of the Make Room campaign that was in place around the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. Perhaps instead of the witnesses making recommendations this evening, the committee might make a recommendation to them that the Make Room structure that worked very effectively be re-introduced. I know that my secretary, and the staff of the then Minister of State, Michael Finneran, were driven bananas by the number of e-mails they received. It did make an impact on the Bill. When the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill was first published, there was no mention of homelessness in it. However, when it got to Final Stage, it had a very substantive presence. It may be time for the organisations to reconsider what they successfully did at that time.

As we move towards December, the budget will have an impact on capital and current funding. Have the individual agencies made proposals to the Department or have they engaged in discussions on that issue? There is also the issue of people sleeping on the streets during the Christmas period. The Simon Community in Cork was successful in ensuring that nobody slept on the streets of Cork during the Christmas period. I wonder if that arrangement could be broadened to all counties and continue up to the new year. Have the agencies plans in place to ensure nobody is on the streets at Christmas, as this is a time that resonates with the public? It should be in place throughout the year but particularly at Christmas.

The issue of the definition of housing was discussed at the time of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Do the agencies believe we need to go back and look at how housing is defined? I find it hard to believe that we are still looking at guesstimates and estimates as to how many homeless people are out there, considering that every local authority, as a result of the 2009 Act, is now required to have a homeless strategy. I would imagine that every local authority in the country would begin its strategy by considering the number of homeless people in its own region. That was one of the flaws that was argued about when the strategies were being put in place and perhaps that is something we as legislators need to look at as well.

There is an estimated figure of approximately 5,000 people on the streets at present. Do the agencies have an estimate of how many of them are lone homeless children and not children that would be associated with families in refuge centres? I welcome Mr. Jordan's comment on a single certification process, that is badly needed and should the opportunity to revisit the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2009 or the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 arise, the Government must give it consideration. What kind of proposals are you bringing forward with regard to the forthcoming budget? What plans are you putting in place to deal with homelessness over the Christmas period? What is the current estimate of the number of children on the street at present?

Mr. Mike Allen

On the question about unattached children, it is very hard to give a figure because of the data. Before the general election earlier this year, a parliamentary question was submitted specifically for the purpose of trying to put together a picture of the different dimensions of homelessness. That gave a figure which was published by The Irish Times and so forth. It was subsequently withdrawn by the HSE and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs after the election because the figure that was given, which was 80 children on any given night nationally and over 600 children over the year, was actually a measure of the number of unattached children who came into contact with social workers. They might, in fact, have been housed in emergency foster care.

All figures for the last ten years were withdrawn at that point and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs is currently putting in place a new system to try to get a robust figure for the exact number of children who would be on the street overnight and therefore in the most extreme form of homelessness. It is impossible to give an official figure. Focus Ireland works with the HSE in Dublin to run the crisis intervention service, so our local service would be familiar with the numbers but they are very variable because one does not know if one is seeing everything. I can provide the committee with more detail on that, if that would be useful, but it gives the picture of how difficult it is to get that type of data. They are relatively small numbers but they are such extreme circumstances that one would hope they would be small numbers.

With regard to the cold weather strategy in Dublin, that is the responsibility of the local authorities through the housing executive. Last year, the emergency beds were provided by Crosscare and the outreach service has always been jointly operated by Dublin Simon Community and Focus Ireland. This year, I believe the beds will be in the St. Vincent de Paul hostel in Back Lane. Last year there was a very successful strategy in Dublin during the extreme weather. Nobody died, there were no extreme cases of ill health and people were off the street, even people who were struck with mental health issues and entrenched rough sleepers. The objective for all the agencies involved would be deliver a cold weather strategy with the same achievement this year. The issue - Niamh Randall referred to this - is uncertainty about whether there is a sufficient number of beds. Nobody knows the answer to that problem. Many people are not finding beds every night because there are not enough, and the homeless executives of the local authorities are trying to work through to what extent that is about bed management or insufficient beds. That question has to be answered as the weather gets cold, because one cannot be asking that question when somebody is forced to sleep in the freezing cold.

Ms Niamh Randall

There is a cold weather strategy in Cork and Galway involving the Simon Community. It is working with the local authorities and other services in the areas. The strategies were really successful last year and the fact that there were no deaths on the street given the extreme weather conditions was a miracle and a credit to all the hard work that was done. The concern is that weather forecasters are predicting a colder winter this year, with snow in October and so forth. Going on today's weather that might be the case. There are concerns about that and about having the resources in place if that happens.

Mr. Bob Jordan

I wish to put something back on the table as it has been off the table for a couple of years. It is the concept of having a right to housing in the Constitution. Many of the things that have happened in the last decade or 15 years might not have happened if there had been a right to housing in the Constitution, acting as a check on the right to private property. The constitutional review group is meeting at present.

A right to housing would have an impact for people who are homeless. In addition, some principles are being established around that. For example, there is a principle applying to home owners currently whereby there is a moratorium on repossession. The principles we are working from are that ultimately the people we work with, who are homeless, have a right to a home and, from Threshold's point of view, we are trying to stand up for the security of people who live in the private rented sector so they cannot be arbitrarily removed. Perhaps it is something to put on the table. I am aware that it is a big picture issue but it is something all the organisations here talk about. It might be time to put that back on the table again so we do not end up in a similar position in the future.

Chairman

Homelessness is something we will be considering as part of the committee's work programme. With regard to section 10 of the 1998 Act, I will give you a task, be it as individual agencies or under the Make Room umbrella. Perhaps you would provide the committee with a submission on the section 10 concerns you raised this afternoon. That is something the committee could examine and it could make recommendations to the Department and the Minister.

I will call Deputy Clare Daly, Senator Cáit Keane, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy and Deputy Tony McLoughlin.

Deputy Clare Daly

I will not repeat the questions that were asked earlier but I agree with the points about the need to protect funding in the areas of prevention and so forth. The most striking figure is the 70% of people who are capable of independent living. Clearly, therefore, the issue is housing. This is a consequence of the virtual privatisation of our social housing stock and the reality that we are not delivering any more. While I agree that we must wait to see what emerges from the NAMA audit, many of those properties will probably be unsuitable. We already know that, but that is probably part of a bigger problem.

There have been moves in Dublin to more local service provision, which is to be welcomed. Certainly Fingal has, for the first time, just completed the purchase of a number of units specifically for homeless people. Perhaps we could get some information on where that money came from, why it is doing that and if there is any more in the kitty. It is small relative to the overall numbers but it is a new departure. Fingal has never been involved in something like that. Is it being expanded?

We are seeing more of these approved housing bodies. It is a virtual cottage industry because they are sprouting up all over the place. To be honest, I have my doubts about them and whether there is a need for so many. However, that is probably another story. They get lists from the local authorities and vet those lists. Where is the code of practice for these approved housing bodies? What gives them the right to say they will not accept somebody because they have a certain history? What happens to those people, given that they are probably the people who are in most need of assistance in that regard?

Is there any indication of how many people are employed on the SLI project or who funds them? I am aware that they work with the local authorities but my experience is that they are quite over-burdened. The objective of assisting people in their own home is worthwhile but I do not believe the resources are there to do that in a meaningful way. Do the witnesses know how many staff are involved?

Senator Cáit Keane

We are discussing homelessness when the general topic of conversation on the street is how many empty units there are in Dublin. When one cannot marry the two together, there is something wrong. The issue of the social dividend from NAMA raised by Deputy Nash is something this committee will have to take up to ensure that it happens. One cannot listen to talk about houses having to be knocked down, although the people who are out on the street probably do not hear it. However, it is unacceptable to have such a society.

I have a question about the statistics. We were discussing statistics in the Seanad a few days ago. It is much easier to collate statistics with the availability of information technology, IT. The four organisations are talking to each other on the ground but are they talking to each other through IT? If they were, they would not have to do a count every month or whenever because if one person went to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, it would automatically flash up on the other organisations' screens and they would have an updated account through the system. Do they have that type of system or do they need that type of system? I realise they are voluntary organisations and things are difficult but there are many IT companies who could be approached on this issue.

Under section 9 of the housing Act, the housing authorities must carry out a count every three years. The count is in for 2011 in each local authority. The Department collates the figures for homelessness, Traveller accommodation and various other categories. I am surprised that Ms Randall said there is no national count for the homeless. I previously served on a local authority and I am au fait with the figures. She said local authorities are bad at talking to one another and that is another issue that needs to be linked to putting need and assessment on a national rather than a county basis.

Perhaps the submission could be made under section 10, as the Chairman said. The groups have good recommendations which have been noted. Has there been an increase in the number of women needing housing and in the incidence of homelessness among women generally? At the last count, only 221 beds were available for women. How is that issue being dealt with?

I have come across homeless people who do not want to engage with any agency. When I was a member of South Dublin County Council, one homeless person did not want to know and he wanted to stay on the streets. Are numbers kept in this regard? It is up to the Government to do this but can the groups feed in information such as that?

Deputy Kevin Humphreys

I thank the groups for their presentations. Can we take it for granted that everybody wants to end homelessness? The targets are a good idea. Ms Randall mentioned clustering as an easier way to manage the problem. I have concerns about this. I represent an inner city area in Dublin and we have experienced clustering and the problems that go with it by default and the communities affected carry a disproportionate burden. I challenge the figure of 70%. I just totted up the number of homeless people I dealt with over the past 12 months who returned to local authority housing. I reckon the success rate is 50%. They may still be in the accommodation but they have slipped backwards and they either are a danger to themselves or a problem for their neighbours. What is the experience in this regard?

I am a strong advocate of moving the homeless and of them getting their share of the local authority units. However, the residents in the areas they move into say they get disheartened because the supports are not in place in the long term. While everything works well for nine to 12 months, when problems happen, it is next to impossible to re-engage. If someone engages in anti-social behaviour, has an addiction or fails to take necessary medication, the services cannot be brought in.

Transition housing can work but it should work both ways. There has to be a confidence within communities, especially those that take a disproportionate number of the homeless. There is a way to take people into transition housing, build their confidence, get them back on the straight and narrow and move them into accommodation. I have come across a number of people who had been seen the benefit of transition housing. That worked better than moving the homeless from the street directly into full-time accommodation. When they live in transition housing, they learn life skills before moving to permanent accommodation. I would be interesting in the views of the witnesses on that. I have seen examples of this in England which have worked well, especially with problematic families, rather than making them homeless. Here one is evicted from local authority housing and then one has go to the HSE and seek rent allowance. There is no sanction and then there are problems. It would be better if transition housing was supported to help people back on to the straight and narrow.

The count needs to be done, the quality of housing is important and the over concentration of homelessness in parts of Dublin is a problem. Where there is a concentration of homelessness, there is also a concentration of addiction problems and poverty. All these issues come together and work against all the groups living within the area.

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy

I thank the groups for their informative presentation. It is clear they are passionate about ending homelessness once and for all. Many men are homeless. Why is that? Has research been conducted into their marital status?

I refer to appropriate housing for the homeless. According to the Simon Community submission, many of the homeless suffer from addiction. It is quite a leap if one has been homeless long term to assume responsibility for a house. Has consideration been given to sheltered housing rather than just the SLI support where, for example, three people could live together in one house to enable them to come to terms with the responsibilities involved and to relearn skills they may have lost? Has this been researched? Is it possible to do this?

Deputy Michael P. Kitt

Mr. Jordan commented on the private rented sector and self-certification in today's edition of The Irish Times . I am a little concerned about this. I presume he would agree there should be inspections regarding the quality of housing because I am concerned that people could become trapped in poor quality accommodation. I agree with him that the private sector has a role to play in housing.

Deputy Sandra McLellan

I am sorry I missed the presentations. Senator Keane asked about the increase in the number of homeless women. Do some of them present as a result of domestic violence? Is that why more women and children are becoming homeless? I support Deputy Humphrey's comments on transition housing. That works well elsewhere and people must learn life skills before they move on. Clustering is not the answer.

Senator Denis Landy

I apologise for leaving during the presentations but I had to attend another meeting. I refer to homelessness in rural Ireland. I discussed this issue with representatives of the Simon Community and Threshold recently. I come from south Tipperary and no facility is available there for the homeless. People who are homeless for one reason or another are put in a bed and breakfast for a night or two and then they are given a bus or train fare and told to go to the accommodation centre in Waterford. How can this be tackled? There are many plans and strategies in place to deal with major urban centres. I concur with Senator Keane's comment about local authorities not engaging in joined up thinking on homelessness. Information is defended in case they might give away too many figures and end up having to set up a centre. I was the chairman of a housing SPC for a number of years and it is an area in which people do not want to engage if they can at all avoid it. It is a general question focusing a little on rural Ireland as opposed to city locations.

Ms Niamh Randall

I will try to address a number of those questions but my colleagues will speak on various issues as well. In regard to Senator Cáit Keane's query on statistics and IT systems, we comprise only some of the organisations working on homeless service provision in the country. There is a range of other organisations as well. There was a system in Dublin called LINK, an IT system in which services in Dublin were involved. That has evolved into a system which I think Mr. Mike Allen mentioned earlier, the PASS system. That is being piloted in Dublin currently and the plan is to roll it out nationwide. That would be an opportunity for data to be collected on a national basis which would assist in the process. However, it is collecting a lot of administrative data and we are keen to ensure that Counted In happens alongside it in order that we collect the most appropriate and most relevant information even for year one. We can then spot the gaps in terms of PASS and we can plug the gaps in it or whatever the case may be to ensure we get the most relevant and most useful information.

In regard to the housing needs assessment, the challenge with that is that it counts only those who are registered as homeless with the local authority in question, so it does not necessarily count all the people who are homeless in that region. It is only those registered with the local authority at that point in time. In 2008, when we compared the figures for the housing needs assessment and Counted In, which was done in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, there was a disparity in the figures so, therefore, we know it does not actually count all of those who are homeless.

Senator Cáit Keane

In the South Dublin County Council area, the housing officers went out on the street to find people. I do not know about other local authorities.

Ms Niamh Randall

There is a disparity between the two figures and I suppose that is one of the concerns.

In regard to the HNA, the most concerning thing is the high figure at this point in time at nearly 98,000. I suppose one of the really concerning things is the figure in regard to those who are not reasonably able to afford to meet the cost of their own accommodation. Do not quote me, but I think it was around 65,000 people. That was a matter of great concern.

There was a query about women and men. The information available to Simon from its recent health snapshot study shows that not all the people concerned were using Simon's services but that some 600 were. When we looked at the gender, it was 75% male and 25% female which would be quite standard across the board in terms of homeless service providers. We also looked at the reasons people were homeless. That might be quite interesting because family breakdown, family disputes and domestic violence featured in the top six of the issues listed, indicating that could be a reason for it. It could be quite a high reason as to why there might be higher levels of men in terms of homeless services.

In regard to success rates, Deputy Kevin Humphreys mentioned that his experience was perhaps 50%. The gap there is probably the appropriate support. If people are given the appropriate support, the success rates seem to be higher. That also feeds into the query in regard to transitional housing because it is about early intervention. If there are early warning systems, one can see when somebody's situation is spiralling out of control. One can see when there might be an issue in terms of drug or alcohol use and a relapse happening and one can ensure that person gets the support needed at that point in time before the situation gets out of control and there is an issue for the individual and those living close to them. Support is the real gap there.

We very much see the causes of homeless as being structural issues. Poverty is the root cause of all of these issues. It is the root cause of drug and alcohol use and of homeless. Therefore, when all of the issues happen concurrently, there will be a huge number of issues in a particular area.

In regard to people moving out of homelessness who have drug and alcohol issues, one of the key things is having an appropriate number of detox places, residential detox programmes and aftercare programmes because, as was rightly identified, there are issues in terms of somebody moving immediately into a home of their own and living independently. There is a real dearth of appropriate detox residential beds and appropriate supports around drug and alcohol use nationally. That is an area on which we will focus.

As these are the concluding comments, I take the opportunity to thank the committee for meeting us today.

Mr. Bob Jordan

Deputy Kevin Humphreys mentioned clustering and the dangers of it. I suppose it is trying to get the balance right between the ghettos, of which we are all aware, and being able to deliver services on a very individualised basis. Our experience in Threshold is that we have a project of 23 to 25 formerly homeless people in the city centre who live in houses next door to each other. The neighbours do not even know they are people who were formerly homeless. I suppose that is the issue.

The key issue is around the provision of tenancies and sustainment of those people. There is an issue around when people start to lose the label of being homeless. Perhaps if they were placed by Simon or Focus Ireland, to be fair to them, it would be even more difficult than for Threshold which is more recognised as a housing charity.

In terms of tenancy sustainment, the ratio is approximately 1 to 25. If one can manage to do that, it seems to work and avoid a huge accumulation of people in the area.

Deputy Clare Daly raised the issue of the voluntary housing sector, which will be dealt with by the committee at some stage. There is definitely an issue that there are 700 approved housing bodies and only 23,000 voluntary housing units in the country. The Private Residential Tenancies Act is being amended to bring the voluntary housing sector partly under that in the sense that people will be able to bring their disputes, which Deputy Clare Daly, mentioned to the Private Residential Tenancies Board in the future.

Clearly there is an issue about regulation of the voluntary housing sector. The fact it has not been regulated in some respects means that it has not grown either. When they look for private capital from banks - this is a particular issue now - the banks will look to see if they are regulated by the State. Clearly, there is a gap there. That is a big issue which will have to be dealt with in the future, certainly if they are to have the same impact they have in the UK in terms of the provision of social housing.

Deputy Michael Kitt raised the issue of certification. There are two aspects to this. The reason we are calling for self-certification is that even the best local authorities in the country - Dublin City Council would certainly be up there in terms of carrying out inspections - will not get to every property. Self-certification is really putting the onus back on the owner of the property to prove that the dwelling is fit to live in. That is before people move in because inspections happen after people move in, so if one is living in poor quality accommodation, one must suffer for a while. What we are saying is that local authority inspections need to be complementary. They must check people are certified but along with that, they must target older and neglected properties. Everybody in every town and city in the country knows exactly where they are. It frees up local authorities to go after them and to bring the whole private rented sector up to scratch.

Ms Caroline Fahey

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul's IT systems and the kind of information gathering we have are quite poor but we are working on them and on getting a system in place so we will have a better idea of our services and what is going on in them. That will be very beneficial but it will be a couple of years by the time it is fully rolled out.

Our experience is that relationship breakdown is a very important factor in why some of the men end up in some of our homeless services. Often what one finds is that our visitation conferences, which are local groups, help the wife or the partner and the children while the homeless hostel helps the man who had to leave the home for whatever reason, so it is quite sad.

In terms of helping people to stay in their accommodation, members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul do that every day of the week. They do a lot of negotiating with landlords when rent goes unpaid. They help people to negotiate with their utility companies to try to organise their bills a bit better. Of course, their capacity is limited, being volunteers. They might only be volunteering three or four hours per week and someone might need a lot more support than that. I thank the committee for the hearing.

Mr. Mike Allen

To pick up Deputy Clare Daly's point on the voluntary housing bodies and the allocations policy, it is an issue about which we have a concern that there is cherry-picking by voluntary housing bodies in terms of taking people off the homeless list. To some extent, I suppose that is understandable in that they have this concern that if the support is not there, they will end up with a tenant without the capacity to be able to support them. Putting support in place is crucial.

The Council for Social Housing, the four local authorities and the Homeless Executive recently completed work on a new allocations policy which everyone has agreed on. It will try to make sure that while there is some choice in tenancy for new developments to achieve balance in a community, which is desirable for everybody, the choice is not so great that cherry picking will take place. That has not been rolled out but will be nationally. Its success is crucial to whether this will work.

A question was asked about numbers. The contract the Dublin Simon Community has for SLI and the four Dublin areas is for 100 households and it has been at that level for some time. Focus Ireland came in later and has a contract for 60 households. It is ultimately funded from section 10, something to which we will return. The ratio is 25:1 and one can quickly work out the staff numbers. It is important to understand that the system is still cheaper than leaving people in private emergency or other accommodation.

Ms Randall partly addressed Senator Keane's point on the housing needs assessment and I will add to it. Comparing the Counted In and local authority figures results in a ratio of 3:1. The Department is very clear that the housing needs assessment is not a measure of homelessness, rather it is a measure of people's contact with a local authority. It varies between different local authorities but the average is 3:1. It points to the weakness of the system. It is important that we have those data but they do not give us the full picture, partly because people are not in the system, such as those living in squats or who are in contact with homeless services but not local authorities.

We get an update each morning on the number of people who looked for beds in Dublin the previous night and did not get them. One of the features over the past six months or year is the relatively high proportion of women who are not getting a bed for the night in Dublin. Nobody knows what the reason is. One could be an increase in the number of women who are homeless. Another could be changes that were made in the provision of beds for women in Dublin. As I mentioned, part of the reconfiguration involves the closure of a number of women only beds and transferring them to mixed hostels. The homeless network has raised its great concern with the executive that many women will not go near a mixed hostel.

Work is currently under way by Paula Mayock in Trinity College on homeless women in Dublin, which would be very useful to the committee. It shows virtually all women experiencing homelessness have also experienced some form of domestic violence. It is not necessarily the immediate cause but it has been part of their life experience and contributed to it. It is one of the reasons they are sensitive about certain types of hostel accommodation. It is being examined urgently by the Homeless Executive in Dublin but probably not urgently enough.

Work on young homeless people over a period of time, again conducted by Paula Mayock, found that when one studies what happens to homeless teenagers over ten years, homeless boys often become homeless men, prisoners or die, while homeless girls are more likely to settle through re-engaging with their families. The work concentrated on exits from homelessness and emphasised the importance of a wider sense of family in reconnecting, something all of us are trying to learn from and use in our work.

One person's clustering is another person's ghetto. One does not want to have such a large cluster that it becomes a ghetto or is seen as one. It is best to have relatively small numbers and preferably anonymous housing where nobody knows who the landlord is. Focus Ireland owns a lot of housing but nobody knows we own it and that the people living in it were homeless, other than us. That has to be the model used. The support should not disappear after six months but should be available in the way Mr. Jordan identified if a problem arises which might lead to difficulties elsewhere.

When we refer to "children" we mean those who are legally children. Most are teenagers. Mr. Jordan said I should answer the question on rural homelessness, which is probably most beyond my experience. Ms Randall can respond.

Ms Niamh Randall

I just realised I neglected to respond to that issue. There is an issue in terms of rural homelessness and the risk of homelessness in rural areas, something which is under-acknowledged. People are living in real isolation in rural areas. People have no running water or electricity, which one would not imagine is possible in this day and age. A piece of research carried out by the NCAOP two or three years ago highlighted the problems. It is very worrying.

One of the key things that struck me is that the homeless strategy is based on local issues and responses. One key thing is having local and regional fora, the idea being that people's needs are responded to in their localities where they are connected to their social network, services, GPs and support networks at a local level. When the review of the homeless strategy is under way there should be reinvigoration of local and regional fora and local responses to people's needs at a local level.

Deputy Kevin Humphreys

I do not think I explained my point earlier. Clustering occurs where there are already problems with poverty, something Mr. Jordan acknowledged. Within the flat complexes in the inner city area I represent, one in four or five people are living in one bedroom homeless flats. One gentlemen has slept outside his flat on the balcony for the past 16 months with the door locked. He was stabilised within a year, yet we cannot get him to go inside his door. Residents have to climb over him to get to their homes. There are five or six families with addiction problems who travel between five flats and have various parties until 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.

Yesterday I spent an afternoon trying to get one block to accept an additional homeless person. The answer I heard was that the residents are left with the problem when the system breaks down. There should be transition in and out. If there is a problem I have to be confident I or other public representatives can say to the community that if the system breaks down there is a solution. There is currently no local solution. Communities say they are left with the problem. We will not deal with the crisis unless there is an acceptance within communities to house the homeless. We have to provide confidence that problems will be dealt with in the long term and communities will not be left carrying the can.

Chairman

I thank Deputy Humphreys. There is a phrase: "Consistency in a world gone mad." I recall that during my time on Cork City Council an application was made for a wet house by the Simon Community which created all sorts of consternation, protest and planning objections. In the preceding 12 months before it was built a sex shop and head shop were established on the same street and nobody complained. However, when a homeless shelter was proposed people came out of the woodwork. One does not get that kind of consistency when it comes to good planning.

I thank the delegates and wish them well over the coming months. In concluding this afternoon's deliberations, if the delegates collectively or individually could submit their views on section 10 of the Act the committee would be very willing to examine them as part of its work programme. I seek the permission of the committee, if such reports were was admitted, to work on them. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The joint committee went into private session at 4.30 p.m. and adjourned at 6 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 25 October 2011.