Plans to outsource services for homeless ‘retrograde’

GOVERNMENT plans to tackle homelessness will place the most vulnerable at risk and should not go ahead in their current form, a leading homeless charity has claimed.

In a submission to the Department of Environment obtained by the Irish Examiner, independent homeless charity Trust says the Government’s plans to outsource support services for the homeless to voluntary bodies is a “retrograde” step – and suggests it may have been devised simply to save money.

In the document, addressed to Housing Minister Michael Finneran, director of Trust Alice Leahy says it is totally opposed to outsourcing services as it allows the State to abdicate its responsibility to vulnerable people.