'I Found People Dead in Homeless Hostels - It All Changed with Drugs' Father
Peter McVerry:
UPDATED: Ireland’s largest local authority Dublin City Council Is unable
to house homeless elderly people in the vulnerable (over 60’s) and in many
cases (over 70’s) age group. The only beds that are made available, through its
Homeless Services Section at Parkgate Hall, which is situated opposite The
Criminal Courts of Justice (CCJ) in Parkgate Street, are as an unnamed source
within the Homeless Services Section told this reporter, “most of the hostels
are kips, full of drugs, alcohol and head-cases- Santry Lodge In Ballymun is
about the best of them, there is no suitable accommodation available for
elderly people”. While the HSE published guidelines for elderly people to
follow in order to avoid catching coronavirus, which can be fatal for elderly
people- who may be suffering from any one of, or several- of a range of
illnesses, which they list in their guidelines. However, The HSE and Dublin
City Council are unable to provide services to the most at-risk members of the
population, (the homeless population).
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
The development of an
older peoples' housing facility at the centre of an investigation will
cost €70m if Dublin City Council takes it over from a housing charity.
Dublin City Council
Assistant Chief Executive Brendan Kenny said he would try to get the money
from the social housing fund as quickly as possible.
The building at
Berkeley Street in the north inner city had housed 21 units for older people
until it was taken over by the charity Cabhru Housing Association Services
(CHAS) formerly known as Catholic Housing Aid Society, in 2018.
CHAS planned to
demolish the building and replace it with a "state of the art"
facility with 35 units and started moving out tenants in advance of getting
planning permission.
It was then revealed
that the rooms were being rented out to students for more than three times the
amount that older residents had been charged.
Chief Executive of
CHAS Michael McGovern subsequently resigned, and the Charities Regulator is
carrying out an investigation.
Mr Kenny told a
meeting of the Central Area committee that the council felt very bad about what
happened and any of the former tenants who were moved out could return if they
wanted.
Cllr Mannix Flynn who
had first raised concerns about the CHAS operation said it had been
"terribly traumatic" for the older people who had been evicted.
And he said this had
happened without any objection from charities for older people or Dublin City
Council or any of the committees.
CHAS was previously at
the centre of controversy in 2014 when the city council accused the charity of
charging excessive rents to older people at another facility, Fr Scully House
on Gardiner Street.
END of UPDATE:Fr Peter McVerr |
Much
of Ireland's homeless accommodation would be "closed down overnight"
if it faced similar quality checks to the country's hospitals, according to a
prominent homelessness activist. Fr Peter McVerry claimed that many homeless
people feel safer in tents than in hostels where, he said, violence and
drug-taking is rife.
Homeless
champion Fr Peter McVerry has slammed the hostel system as “a disaster”. His
comments come as a man living on the streets remains in hospital with
life-changing injuries. The foreign national, who was sleeping in a tent along
Dublin’s Grand Canal, was seriously injured on Tuesday night when council and
Waterways Ireland workers were removing tents from the area. Fears emerged
yesterday the victim, aged in his 30s, is now paralysed. Fr Peter McVerry,
founder of the Peter McVerry Trust, yesterday slammed the emergency accommodation
system, saying many homeless people sleep in tents because it’s safer than
hostels.
https://pmvtrust.ie/services/homeless-services/#dublin
https://alone.ie/alone-launch-a-covid-19-support-line-for-older-people-working-in-collaboration-with-the-department-of-health-and-the-hse/
https://alone.ie/alone-launch-a-covid-19-support-line-for-older-people-working-in-collaboration-with-the-department-of-health-and-the-hse/
He
told RTE Radio One’s Morning Ireland: “It’s true there are hostel places
available but what’s not discussed is the quality of those hostel places. “Many
people don’t feel safe in those hostels. Now, some hostels are excellent, and
people are very happy there. “But there are many hostels where people are
sharing a room with five or six other people. You don’t know who you’re sharing
with. “The biggest complaint I get from homeless people is they wake up in the
morning and all the people who are sleeping in the room with them are gone and
so are all their belongings. The second biggest complaint is being assaulted.”
Parkgate Hall: Dublin City Council's Homeless Services Centre |
Fr
McVerry said many of those staying in hostels are living with addiction or
mental health issues. Those, who have never used narcotics often approach him,
asking whether he can help them find drug-free hostels. He said: “There are some drug-free hostels,
but they are very few and far between. Many of those people who are drug-free
simply have- to share a room with active drug users. “I think that’s immoral.
But that’s the reality.”
Father
Peter McVerry has opened -up about Government indifference and toxic drugs that
he’s faced during his 40 years working with homeless people.
The
Newry man started helping some of Dublin’s most vulnerable during his training
as a Jesuit priest. The campaigner spoke candidly in a new RTE documentary
about how society’s often ignorant to the problems facing the homeless. He
said: “I went into the inner-city with a very middle- class attitude. “Here
were young people who were out robbing, and I thought, ‘Maybe I’m going to come
in here and change these young people.’ “After a few years the only person who
had changed was me. “If you have the top floor flat of a building and you open
the curtains in the morning and look out into a beautiful back garden, things
look very good.
“But
if you’re in the basement flat of the same building and you open the curtains
and see the whitewashed wall of the outside toilet, you can’t see the flowers,
or the sun or the birds. “There you have two people looking at the same garden,
at the same time, on the same day but they have two totally different views. “For
the first 30 years of my life I was living on the top floor.”
Fr
McVerry established a youth club in 1974 in Summerhill and an encounter with a
nine-year-old boy who was sleeping rough to avoid his alcoholic, violent home
led to him setting up a hostel. He compared issues like the €3million Talbot
Bridge with poverty in the North inner-city. Fr McVerry said: “I contrasted the
money that was being spent on this bridge with the neglect of the people living
in the Summerhill/Sean McDermott Street and that got a lot of criticism. “That
was the first time that I experienced the opposition to the establishment to
ideas that I was speaking about. “So, you begin to get angry and then the rebel
streak begins to come out in you, and you want to change this.
“I
found people dead in our hostels, you’d go in to wake them up and they’d be
dead, it was a total shock and changed everything. “Working with homeless
people radically changed when drugs came into the equation. “One thing that
I’ve learned is that we can’t judge anybody because we don’t know what’s going
on in anyone’s life or anyone’s childhood.”
https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/coronavirus.html
https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/coronavirus.html
The HSE HQ In Dublin |
Sinn Féin's housing spokesperson has said there is a growing
consensus that the market cannot deliver homes that middle-income can afford to
rent or buy. Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke, Eoin Ó Broin said he
spoke with businessman Dermot Desmond about Irish housing policy after Mr
Desmond wrote an opinion article on the topic in the Irish Times at the
weekend. Mr Ó Broin said he emailed Mr Desmond on Sunday about the article and
the pair discussed it in detail yesterday.
The Sinn Féin TD said "architects, city planners, local
authority chiefs and even some industry players" recognise that
"there is a very large section of people for whom renting and buying is becoming
increasingly difficult and who aren't eligible for social housing."
He said the market is building a large- number of "high-end
apartments" that are laying empty because they are too expensive. Meanwhile,
he claimed, local authorities are being prevented from building good quality,
affordable homes that middle-income can rent or buy.
He said it was interesting that Mr Desmond calls for a
"greater level of State intervention to use public lands, master-planned
by local authorities, and financed by the State, to deliver affordable homes
for working people to rent or buy."
Mr Ó Broin said the scheme being developed by Dublin City
Council at the St Michael's estate in Inchicore is an example which could
provide 500 apartments, 70% of which would be affordable rental and 30% would
be social rental.
"It's not just about delivering more homes but the right
kind of homes in the right locations," he said. He also called on political parties to inject
urgency into government formation talks in order to begin addressing housing
issues.
Meanwhile, South Dublin County Council has said it is to
progress an affordable housing development in Killinarden, Tallaght that
could provide up to 500 new social, affordable and private homes. In a
statement, the local authority said the proposed mix for the Killinarden site
is for 300 affordable homes with 100 private and 100 social homes
provided.The local authority added that the development will include a new
community centre and "sports pavilion".
ENDS
ALSO READ:
https://drugsinfonewslineireland.wordpress.com/
POST THIS LINK ON YOUR PAGE: https://socialjusticenewscomment.blogspot.com/
(YOUR HELPLINE LINKS): https://www.drugfreeworld.org/
& www.drugs.ie
& www.drugscope.org.uk
& www.spunout.org
& www.childline.org.uk/
& www.youngminds.org.uk/
& https://www.cybersafeireland.org/about-us/
If you or
someone you know has been affected by mental health issues you can contact:
·
Samaritans - 116 123, text 087 2609090 or email
jo@samaritans.ie
·
Pieta House (Suicide & Self-harm) - 1800 247 247 or 01
623 5606
·
Aware (Depression, Bi-Polar Disorder & Anxiety) - 1800
80 48 48
·
Grow (Mental Health support & Recovery) - 1890 474 474
·
Bodywhys (Eating Disorders Associations of Ireland) - 1890
200 444
·
Childline (for under 18s) - 1800 66 66 66.
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