Help the homeless groups do good work, but lack of vetting is a worry

In the wake of allegations of abuse in the homeless sector, is it time that voluntary outreach workers, however well-meaning, were regulated, asks Donal O’Keeffe

Every Tuesday and every second Friday night Homeless Help and Support Cork set up on Patrick Street, Cork, to hand out hot meals and clothes. Last Tuesday evening over 60 people turned up. Picture: Dan Linehan

We must assume that Anthony Flynn set out with good intentions. Moved by the nightly sight of so many people sleeping rough on Dublin’s streets, the then 27-year-old began in 2013 to distribute sandwiches and sleeping bags to those in need.

Soon others joined him, and what would become Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH) began, with Mr Flynn becoming a tireless advocate for the capital’s rough sleepers. He would go on to build ICHH into a registered charity and a respected voice for the homeless, and in 2019 stood successfully for election to Dublin City Council.

Before he was found dead in tragic circumstances in August Anthony Flynn had been under Garda investigation over allegations he had sexually assaulted a number of men through his work with ICHH. So far, four men have claimed they were sexually assaulted by Mr Flynn, and a report by David Hall, former chairman of ICHH, said Mr Flynn had secured accommodation through the charity for two of the alleged victims.

Mr Hall was subsequently forced to resign from ICHH following a number of threats to his personal safety.

Questions have been raised about the failure by gardaí to alert ICHH in a timely fashion to the allegations against Mr Flynn, a failure which resulted in his retaining a position of power over vulnerable young men long after he might otherwise have been suspended from duty.

The allegations against Mr Flynn have also placed a spotlight on the issue of Garda vetting of those working with homeless people and rough sleepers, with Taoiseach Micheál Martin last week telling Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan “the time has come” for Garda vetting of homeless services.

Anthony Flynn.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said there needs to be a review of vetting procedures for those who deal with vulnerable people, and a spokesperson for Justice Minister Heather Humphreys said the minister has established an inter-departmental group to “examine a number of issues (including the inclusion of homeless outreach services) in relation to the Garda vetting system.” 

That group is due to report by the end of 2021.

Anthony Flynn was Garda vetted, and while it could be argued that gardaí should have withdrawn vetting when allegations surfaced against him, the truth is many volunteers in homeless outreach groups interacting with homeless people and rough sleepers are not vetted at all. That is not the only issue with such voluntary groups, which have proliferated in recent years. The Irish Examiner has heard allegations of intimidation, breaches of health and safety regarding food served to vulnerable people, and even of criminality against some groups (see report below).

As Irish Examiner special correspondent Mick Clifford put it: "Anybody can set up a stall at night time to distribute various forms of aid and sustenance to rough sleepers, and anybody can rock up and volunteer to give a handout."

Pat Doyle, chief executive of Peter McVerry Trust, told the Irish Examiner that in no other area involving vulnerable people would it be acceptable for untrained amateurs to intervene without supervision or regulation.

You wouldn’t show up in a hospital and just start handing out tea and sandwiches, you’d be told to sling your hook, so what is it about homeless people and rough sleepers that some seem to think there should be no regulation and whoever wants should be allowed to just rock up.

Mr Doyle said that because homeless people and rough sleepers are some of our most vulnerable people, standards need to be the highest, and boundaries need to be the strictest.

“I think local authority regulation is essential. Local authorities need to monitor, license, and regulate outreach groups, put a standard on them, make sure people are vetted, and trained.”

However, speaking separately to the Irish Examiner, Fr Peter McVerry himself sounded a note of caution against suggestions that all volunteer groups should be regulated, saying the work of voluntary outreach groups is an expression of compassion toward the vulnerable.

“You don’t need any qualifications to give out soup and sandwiches and to be kind to people, and I wouldn’t like to see that kindness quashed,” he said.

“Any organisation in receipt of State funding is subject to regulation, and you can’t raise funds from the public unless you’re a charity, and if you’re a charity, you have to be regulated, but a small group of people giving out teas and sandwiches and sleeping bags, I have no problem with that, and I don’t think it would be possible to regulate that.”

Training and supervision

Dermot Kavanagh, CEO of Cork Simon, believes oversight is vital for any group dealing with vulnerable people: “I do think there needs to be some degree of regulation to ensure that people who are volunteering, even if they’re not getting statutory funding, that they are adequately supported, adequately co-ordinated, and adequately trained, and appropriately supervised.”

Fr Peter McVerry: 'I wouldn't like to see kindness quashed.'

For David Hall, former ICHH chairman, the impulse to help others is one which should be encouraged, and volunteers should be given training and certification.

“Where you have good people wanting to help the most vulnerable, they should be given professional support. Now, if they decline training, or certification, and decide they know better, then steps need to be taken to weed them out.” 

Mr Hall says it is irresponsible and disrespectful to expect untrained people to be able to help with the myriad complex challenges homeless people and rough sleepers face, and he says questions need to be answered about why this situation has been allowed to continue unchecked for years. He believes local authorities can play a positive role in supporting voluntary groups.

“Just because Jane or Johnny is running an organisation which doesn’t have good practices in place, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to. 

Weed out the bogeys, weed out the dodgy characters, but weed them out by helping organisations to become good, to become safe, to provide the sort of services the genuine people want to provide, and you give the training that is required.

In a lengthy statement, the Department of Housing said that “organisations that provide on-street services like food and other supports targeted at marginalised people, including the homeless … operate outside the scope of mainstream homeless services provided by local authorities and voluntary NGOs which are subject to detailed and rigorous standards. Many of these bodies are registered charities, and as such come within the ambit of the Charities Regulator.” 

It added that “the Dublin Region Homeless Executive is currently engaged in a review of these on-street services, with a view to bringing a greater degree of coherence and oversight to their operations. This review is to be available in coming weeks.”

Pending that review, and many other such reviews, the fact remains that all across Ireland hundreds of people every week don hi-vis jackets and offer food and help to some of the most vulnerable members of our society. They are motivated by kindness and decency, and without them those who have fallen between the cracks would probably fall further.

However, regardless of the nobility of their intent, lack of training, co-ordination, and regulation leaves the volunteer outreach sector worryingly open to abuse by those who might exploit unquestioned access to desperately vulnerable people.

Good intentions on their own are not enough, and without a rigorous system of checks and balances, we know where good intentions can lead. Volunteers deserve better, and, more importantly, vulnerable people deserve better too.

A week on the streets

Seven nights a week on Cork’s streets, untrained and unsupervised homeless outreach groups interact with some of our most vulnerable citizens. Although doubtless motivated by compassion and decency, some of the groups fall short of the highest standards.

It’s half-past eight on a Tuesday night beside St Patrick St’s Eco-Trees, as a Homeless Help and Support van reverses slowly into place and volunteers in hi-vis jackets prepare to set up a trestle table outside the Ulster Bank.

A small, undernourished woman sits on one of the street’s marble-pink stone blocks. Lisa says she is eight months pregnant. She has already named her baby, but as soon as he’s born, she says, he will be taken into care, “like all the others”.

Smoking a cigarette butt she found on the street, Lisa says she hasn’t eaten all day and is waiting to get a bowl of soup once the volunteers are set up. She has a bruise on her forehead, which, she says, is from passing out from hunger.

“I’m 38, 18 years homeless,” Lisa says. “What made me homeless? 

Life made me homeless. Rape made me homeless, addiction made me homeless. 

You’re raped, you can’t deal with it, you try to numb the pain, you keep trying to numb yourself, and you end up addicted, and then you’re raped again. Rape is part of the deal on the street.” 

She says she has applied to “every addiction centre” but can’t get in, and says she would give getting clean a serious try this time, if she thought she could keep her baby. She says she needs a fiver for her next drink, repeating the old observation that nobody could sleep rough sober.

“I’ll sleep tonight in a doorway on Patrick St. Anywhere with a camera. Otherwise, I’d be murdered. You have to be clever in this game.”

The volunteers are set up now, masked and gloved, offering sanitiser to service-users, and serving food from behind Perspex screens. They offer service-users hygiene-packs, new underwear, socks, hats, gloves, tents, and sleeping bags.

Homeless Help and Support's members are vetted.

The operation is efficiently run, and service-users are afforded dignity, with volunteers acting humanely while maintaining a respectful distance. Service-users can be homeless people, rough-sleepers, those struggling with food poverty, and, sometimes, people who are lonely and who look forward to a friendly chat with someone who is kind. (Estimates from Cork Simon suggest the number of rough sleepers in Cork is currently in single figures.) 

Lisa joins the queue, and asks the Irish Examiner to mind her rolled-up sleeping bag and her plastic bottle of clear liquid.  She smiles and says: “There’s food there. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

In fact, the night’s selection looks and smells delicious, with individual lasagnes, spaghetti bolognese, and vegetable soup on offer, and the food is kept hot in bain-maries. Fish, chicken and beef burger suppers have been donated by Ken O’Reilly Fish and Chips of Glanmire, and hot drinks are prepared by volunteers.

Homeless Help and Support is a non-profit, voluntary, registered charity founded in 2018. It says all of its 60-plus volunteers are Garda-vetted, and all of the food it serves is fully traceable and compliant with the Food Safety Authority’s Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point (HACCP) requirements. The charity hopes to open a city-centre premises by the year’s end.

This is just one of several organisations serving food on Cork City’s streets, and seven nights a week volunteers from different groups set up their tables outside the Ulster Bank, or the Savoy, or Brown Thomas. An unscientific survey by the Irish Examiner, across a week, revealed that between 100 and 150 meals are served on an average night.

For over a week, the Irish Examiner spent time visiting these modern-day soup kitchens operating on Cork’s streets, speaking with volunteers and service-users. While most of the disparate outreach groups are well-run, and the motivation and character of volunteers beyond reproach, in some instances the organisational skills, efficiency, and necessary detachment of some volunteers appeared at times to be sub-optimal.

Some of the Cork groups are registered charities, or are in the process of becoming registered, and, with one exception, all of the organisations interviewed said that all or most of their volunteers were Garda-vetted, and all of the food was HACCP-compliant. 

In the case of that exception, that group’s co-ordinator promised to provide the Irish Examiner with a statement. Repeated subsequent calls went unanswered.

On one night, the Irish Examiner witnessed that group’s co-ordinator hook an umbrella handle around the neck of a service-user and lead him down the street, to laughter and cheers from bystanders. The service-user seemed to take the incident in good stead, and another volunteer said “That’s just [name of volunteer]. It’s just a bit of craic.” 

There seemed to be much affection for the group’s co-ordinator, with physical distancing repeatedly breached so hugs could be exchanged with service-users. The group’s co-ordinator told the Irish Examiner they didn’t know the identities of the volunteers serving food that night, saying: “They just showed up tonight, and I give everyone a chance”.

Another volunteer said Cork City Council has a duty of care to look after “our own” first, and blamed homelessness on “the globalist agenda”, a term often used as short-hand for racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Given how many volunteer groups are operating on the streets of Cork, it is perhaps inevitable that personality clashes, faction-fighting, and recriminations occur, with groups sometimes splintering in discord. While some organisations claim to work well with others, the Irish Examiner has heard from some former volunteers claims of bullying and intimidation against erstwhile allies, accusations of significant breaches of health and safety laws relating to the quality of food served to service-users in some cases, and even allegations of criminality.

Allowing that disagreements are unavoidable in any human endeavour, and accepting that exaggerations and bad faith are sometimes inevitable, it appears that the casual, haphazard nature of some groups offers fertile ground for conflict and division.

The Homeless Drive serve food to those who need it.

At 9pm on a Saturday, volunteers from the group Homeless Drive serve food to a small crowd outside Ulster Bank. Volunteers are friendly and well-organised, and the food on offer is well-presented, with Covid guidelines fully observed.

Meanwhile, a stretch limo passes back and forth along Patrick Street, music thumping from within, and young women hang from the windows, shouting at the people on the pavement, while volunteers and service-users alike roll their eyes at this behaviour.

One of Homeless Drive’s service-users, Liam, was born 70 years ago in a mother and baby home. He doesn’t lack for food or shelter, but comes down for a chat with the volunteers every few nights because, he says, they are nice.

“I suffer from depression, and up home I’d be on my own, looking at the walls. I was put into an industrial school when I was small, and I didn’t really have a family. My childhood was terrible lonely, and in the industrial school, well, with the Christian Brothers, I don’t want to talk about it, but really bad things happened.” Taking a sip from the cup of tea the volunteers gave him, Liam begins to cry.

“I walk and walk and I wish to God the depression would just walk out of me. If it wasn’t for the chats with these people, I’d go crazy altogether. Without them, I’d be all alone.”

Names of service-users have been changed