Dublin: Prison Used To Deal With The Homeless And Mentally Ill: McVerry: *UPDATED

*A former hotel on Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin city centre is to be turned in to a homeless hostel.

It comes seven years after it was bought by Dublin City Council for almost €7m.

The council will publish plans this week to convert Longfields Hotel into emergency accommodation run by the Simon community.

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Judges are sending people to jail without knowing what goes on there or how the experience will affect them, a leading social justice campaigner has claimed.

Fr Peter McVerry said prison discriminated against the homeless and mentally ill and damaged inmates’ prospects of ever positively contributing to society. www.pmvtrust.ie

He told a conference hosted by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Law Society of Ireland that imprisonment should be reserved for the most serious crimes, mainly those involving violence.
He argued that jailing someone for three months for a public order offence was “absurd”, citing the case of a young man jailed for such an offence committed a year earlier when he was homeless and battling for custody of his child.
In the interim 12 months, he secured accommodation and got custody of his child, both of which he lost when imprisoned. On release he was homeless again and more angry and frustrated than ever.
“Most judges have little understanding of what life in prison is like, or what life in prison does to a person. Prison can not and should not be used to teach people a lesson or to give someone a short sharp shock,” he said.
He said overcrowding in prisons was encouraging drug use and fuelling violence, and that often the only way to create a space was by giving early release to another prisoner, even if that prisoner was meant to be serving a longer sentence than the new arrival.

Homeless prisoners, however, were not considered for early release “no matter how constructively they have spent their time in prison”. They were also more likely than a person with an address to be remanded in custody than released on bail while awaiting hearing and were more likely to be imprisoned on conviction.
“The irony is that prison is the only one-stop shop available to them where many of their needs will be addressed. There they will get accommodation, three meals a day, their medical needs will be looked after, and they have no financial headaches. Some people he knew deliberately got arrested so they could return to prison.
Fr McVerry, who has been making prison visits for 40 years, made a special plea for alternatives to prison for people with mental illness.
“I visit one young man who believes that aliens have taken over the world, that he has been poisoned with radioactive material, that he is a qualified doctor and many more delusions. He is regularly arrested on minor public order offences, but he invariably forgets to turn up in court and ends up remanded in custody.”
“Prison is often used to deal with people whose problems society is unwilling or unable to address. In doing so, we further damage them and society.”
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ENDS:

Dublin: Homelessness Mostly Affects Low-Income Families

THE SPECTRE OF homelessness has changed in Ireland in the last half-decade.
No longer is the prospect of ending up on the streets the preserve of just a few small sections of society.

A deep recession and cuts to rent supplements mean that many people who never considered themselves in danger now face homelessness.

For Dave*, that has become an all too haunting prospect. He has had his rent supplement cut and has been informed that the rent on his family home in a Dublin suburb is due to be increased. He knows that when that happens at the end of November, he, his wife and his son will be homeless.

“It’s terrifying.
“I lost my job in construction two years ago and I’ve been looking since, but I can’t seem to find anything steady.

“I honestly don’t know what we’ll do. My mam is in a nursing home, so there’s no “family home” there and my wife’s sister and her boyfriend live with her parents. It’s a mess.”
Dave says that he has been attempting to navigate the homelessness system, but that is already proving difficult.

“The charities are great, they’re helpful, but there’s so much information, it’s hard to get your head around it.”

Mary
For Mary, whose apartment block in Galway went into receivership, the situation is as frustrating. She says that landlords are refusing her because she has children.

She has been in emergency accommodation for three months.
“They are saying it’s because of a dangerous balconies but I explained that I’m always with my children so it’s not a problem.
“I’ve had bookings every week but they don’t want to even talk to you.
“I’m very sad and I’m losing my hope.

“The emergency accommodation is fine but it’s not home – I have to keep everything in my boxes.
“It so hard to put the children to bed – I’m so busy looking for houses in the evenings.”
Her child is starting in first class this year.

“The government is good to people looking for accommodation, I think they care.
“I also think the council needs to do some more inspections – there’s accommodation that has dampness and is completely unsuitable.

“I would love a working shower – it’s hard washing the children with cups but I am very grateful for a roof over my head.”

Not alone
These problems, an inability to access private rental accommodation, speak of something new on Ireland’s homelessness landscape – an emerging trend that is pushing more and more families towards emergency accommodation.

This map by the All Island Research Observatory (Airo) in connection with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive shows just how many rental units are in each area of the capital.

It shows that in many of the suburbs that feature higher unemployment and more low-income families, there is a dearth of available in units.

In the Blanchardstown/Dublin 15 area, which has a population of around 100,000, there is around 20,000 private units.  In parts of Dublin city, the problem is even more acute.

That lack of supply, coupled with cuts to rent supplements, means that many families are a rent increase, or an enforced sale of their home, away from an extremely difficult situation.

Anecdotal evidence from people who work families at risk suggests that problems accessing rental accommodation is the biggest problem in the area these days.

Many families are living in fear of having to navigate the system, but many don’t know just how close they are. More still don’t understand how to avoid it.

A spokeswoman from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive says that they have seen a very steady increase in the number of families contacting services within the last year.

She says that families are struggling to find private rental accommodation that is affordable, available and willing to accept rent supplement.

She adds that homeless services are working to really support families who are renting to understand their rights as tenants and stresses to families that they do not have to become homeless before accessing homeless services.

Threshold provide a Tenancy Protection Service on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities, we would urge families who are renting and worried about losing their home to contact the freephone number 1800 454 454 as soon as they feel their tenancy is at risk The Tenancy Protection Service works with tenancy sustainment services from the Dublin Simon Community and Focus Ireland in order to maximise the efforts in response to tenancy breakdown amongst households in private rented accommodation.

Since 16 June to 5 September, the Tenancy Protection Service received 1,700 phone calls.
Of that, 740 families were at risk. We were able to protect 191 family tenancies and the interventions for the remaining 549 are ongoing.

On 8 September, there were 156 families in hotels. The local authorities in conjunction with Focus Ireland are providing Homeless Action Teams to work with the families, providing support in terms of sourcing alternative accommodation in the private rented sector.

“In the long-term, more social housing is needed, but in the immediate term, prevention is key and that we can work to sustain families in their current tenancies.

“We have demonstrated that when there is a clear case of income inadequacy, and an additional emergency needs payment is provided to a family, it is possible for them to stay in their private rented accommodation as opposed to accessing homeless services.”

The issue disproportionately affects low-income families, who are unable to sustain increases in the cost of their rent, but comes down to a simple fact.

“The speed at which people are entering homeless services and the pace at which they’re leaving, are not matching up.”

Cork: Girl's Letter To President Exposes The Misery Endured By Homeless People

A copy of the letter sent to President Higgins by a schoolgirl about her family.

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By Noel Baker
Senior Reporter

"I live in a bedroom with my mom, two brothers and two sisters; that’s six of us in a bedroom, you can’t be a family not like this.

“So Mr President I am asking for your help to help my family. Christmas is coming and I would like for us to be in a home call friends over little thinks like that mean alot when your a child.”

It’s easy to look past the spelling when reading the poignant words of a schoolgirl writing directly to President Michael D Higgins, in a letter released by Focus Ireland yesterday.

According to staff at the homelessness charity, many other families around the country are facing a similarly dire housing situation, battling to keep a roof over their heads, crammed into inadequate accommodation.

www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/helpline-assists-a-quarter-of-callers-at-risk-of-homelessness-to-remain-in-their-homes-1.1924634

The little girl and her family met with President Higgins on Monday at a special event hosted at Áras an Uachtaráin.

The heartbreaking appeal from the girl to the President, written in simple but compelling language, highlights the stark reality faced by many families as they struggle to compete with soaring rental costs and a shortage of social housing.

Yesterday Focus Ireland’s manager for Cork and Limerick, Ger Spillane, said that while families living in hotels and B&Bs has been a feature in Dublin for some time, it is now occurring in Cork for the first time.

“There would be anything between 15 and 20 families in emergency accommodation in Cork City,” he said, adding that “two or three” of those could be in hotels.

He said there was often a fear among families that they might be “broken up” because of the nature of emergency accommodation — with some places unable to take male children older than 13.

He said anecdotally, there was now a suggestion that some women are holding back from leaving a situation of domestic violence because some of the children may not be able to be accommodated in some of the emergency centres.

In July the Focus Ireland Cork office dealt with 110 people, up from 40 people a month early last year.

Mr Spillane said there were real fears that the changing economic situation may mean more families are pushed into homelessness, despite signs of recovery.

He said one example was apartments being taken into receivership from landlords — resulting in tenants being expelled. He also said there were concerns that some families with rent arrears might see their homes being targeted by banks in future when they move from negative to positive equity — as the properties will be more appealing to banks

As for the family of the little girl, Focus Ireland said they are “a really lovely family” and it was “terrible to see the pressure they are under all living in the B&B”.

“The family understand it’s not up to the President to fix the situation,” a spokesman said. “It was just a child writing a letter to the President as he was coming to visit. The mother knows the situation needs to be resolved by the Government and the relevant local authorities.”

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