Tuesday, 10 March 2020

DUBLIN'S HOMELESS HOSTELS ARE "KIPS- FULL OF DRUGS ALCOHOL AND HEAD-CASES"


'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:


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.


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 
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

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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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