Homelessness - Services cuts show where priorities lie

About one in five homeless people did not qualify for a medical card in 2008, because they were in employment.

It appears that they are using the hostels because they cannot afford to pay rent.

Fr Peter McVerry, who has been one of the most effective and articulate campaigners for social justice over the past two decades, finds it difficult to understand how anyone living in emergency hostel accommodation could hold down a job. The emergency hostels are “awful places”, he warns.

They present an unsafe, chaotic environment that is full of drugs and mental problems. Fr McVerry is especially critical of the dormitory style of accommodation. Many of the homeless people are particularly vulnerable, because of past experiences. For example, men who were sexually abused as boys may have a neurotic fear of sleeping in the same room as men.

Such people need their own cubicle. This need not be that spacious, but it should be possible for the person to lock the door and feel safe. Those who have no such fears may sleep well only to find that what little money or valuables that they had, were stolen while they were asleep.

Many of those who use the hostels have drug habits, especially alcohol addiction, and others have mental problems. As a result many very vulnerable people would rather sleep rough than use a hostel for the homeless.

The majority of women in need of homeless services have histories of victimisation, often going back to childhood. A recent study conducted by researchers at Trinity College Dublin found that 93% of the homeless women that they interviewed had spoken about violent or abusive upbringings.

Despite a distinct increase in the number of women accessing homeless services, there has been a reduction in the amount of women-only accommodation. Yet even before that reduction, those services were already oversubscribed, because women, who suffered violent and abusive upbringings, are frequently terrified of mixed-gender facilities.

Cutting essential services at the time of greatest need is not only detrimental for the homeless, it is equally damaging for our society as a whole, because it is a damning indictment of the Government’s sense of priorities.