Group co-ordinating Cork homeless services have not met for a year

'Covid and staff changes' to blame

The Cork homeless forum hasn’t met since December 17, 2021.

A high-level group charged with the strategic coordination of homeless services in Cork hasn’t met for almost a year despite surging homeless figures.

Covid and staff changes have been blamed for the failure of the Cork Regional Homeless Forum to meet since December 17, 2021.

The revelation comes just weeks after the number of homeless adults in the Cork Kerry region broke the 500 mark for the first time, and national homeless figures topped 10,000.

It also comes after Threshold confirmed that it has reviewed 800 notices to quit in Cork in the first eight months of this year, double the rate of last year, and half of which were deemed invalid.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould, a member of the Dáil’s housing committee, described the revelation that the forum hasn’t met in a year as “shocking”.

'I expected more to be done this year'

“Homelessness is the number one issue at the moment,” he said.

“I’m dealing with a homeless person or family every week, and the charities and NGOs working in this area are seeing people stuck in emergency accommodation for weeks or months on end.

“Those groups are on the coalface. They see trends and what’s coming down the tracks, and they have ideas on how to tackle this, and they used this forum to discuss those ideas, so that there could be a coordinated approach to dealing with this crisis.

“I expected more to be done this year and when I found out that the forum wasn’t meeting, it’s just a shocking situation.” 

In a reply to a parliamentary question from Mr Gould on the issue, housing minister Darragh O’Brien said the administration of homeless services is the responsibility of local councils and is organised into nine regions, each with a consultative forum.

In the south-west region, the Kerry homeless forum held its most recent meeting last week, on December 6.

But the Cork regional forum, chaired by Cork City Council, and including Cork Simon, Depaul, Sofia Housing, Good Shepherd Services, Focus Ireland, Peter McVerry Trust, O’Connell Court, Wellsprings, Tusla Aftercare Service, the Probation Service, the Department of Social Protection, the HSE mental health and social inclusion services, and the gardaí, hasn’t met since December 17, 2021.

Meeting next Tuesday

The minister said “Covid and staff changes” were to blame and he said the forum is due to meet next Tuesday, at which the 2023 schedule of meetings will be agreed. It's expected the forum will meet quarterly.

But Mr Gould said he believes this meeting has only been scheduled because he started asking questions and he said the Covid and staffing issue is not "an acceptable or credible excuse".

“The ball has been dropped here in Cork. The department should have been asking ‘why isn’t the forum meeting'?," he said.

A spokesman for the city council said senior officials from the region's three local authorities and the HSE, attend statutory management meetings every two months, and 'homeless action team' meetings are held in each local authority every fortnight.

"We are also involved in separate meetings such as the 'aftercare steering group (every six to eight weeks), housing first management teams (monthly), cold weather meetings (fortnightly since October) and meet with all our service providers on a regular basis to discuss operational issues and to ensure the needs of people in emergency accommodation are being met," he said.