Focus Ireland expands service for young people
Ger Spillane, regional manager with Focus Ireland for the southern region, said a programme that has already been in operation in Cork for the past year and which has already been expanded into other parts of Munster will now be available into Co Clare and north Tipperary.
It is expected that across all the areas in which the scheme will run, 40 to 45 housing units units will be available.
It comes as Mr Spillane outlined how 21 families — including 49 children — living in B&B and hostel accommodation in Cork City will be able to stay in their emergency accommodation for Christmas, following initial fears that it may not have been available. He said Cork City Council had now made provision for the families.
With more than 1,500 children in Ireland currently homeless with their families and 5,000 people living in emergency hostel, B&B or hotel accommodation, or rough sleeping, Mr Spillane said the scale of the crisis is obvious. Focus Ireland has more than 70 projects and last year supported more than 11,500 people.
In the south-east region alone (including Waterford), long-term supported housing projects have helped 67 families and more than 125 children while the Focus Ireland Tenancy Support and Sustainment Service worked with 75 families and 179 children in the same period.
In Limerick five families and 12 children were assisted through the long-term supported housing projects, while in Cork five families and 10 children were helpedin the same way.
Behind the statistics, there are personal stories of lives being turned around.
Three years ago Diane was facing homelessness, along with her two children, one of whom has a disability.
Having previously had to move from her local authority house in Limerick City because of anti-social issues outside her control, the landlord said they were selling up and she would have to get out.
When things seemed bleak, Focus Ireland suggested she could stay in one of its properties.
Three years later Diane and her children are still living in the same house, and she has gone back to third-level education.
“They give you more than just the housing,” Diane says. “Besides being workers, they are friends.
She believes that the turnaround would not have been possible without the security of her own home.
This has given her children “certainty” about where they live, and she believes the level of rent she is paying is reasonable and fair.
“If I did not have Focus today, I don’t know where I would be,” she said.
