THIS MORNING SAW the launch of Focus Ireland’s annual report for 2021, just 10 days after the Department of Housing confirmed record levels of homelessness in Ireland for the second month in a row.
During his opening remarks, Focus Ireland CEO Pat Dennigan used the 2021 report to cut a stark contrast with where we are now, pointing out that family homelessness is up 56% when compared to this time last year.
“Across the country,” he says, “if our customers are evicted, they simply have no place to go. When they contact local authorities, they are asked if they can stay with an aunt, an uncle, a sibling. There is no room at the inn.”
As he speaks, Dennigan repeatedly returns to the claim that “we know how to end homelessness”, pointing to measures taken during the pandemic, such as increased notice periods, rent freezes and eviction bans.
Throughout the morning, several references are made to the much-discussed proposal of a winter eviction ban, something that Taoiseach Micheál Martin says is still under consideration.
Dennigan said that such a ban by itself would not be enough, and that a moratorium on evictions should be put in place for years, “in order to give breathing space for lasting solutions”.
Even emergency measures introduced during the height of the pandemic failed to stymie the anxiety around homelessness. Figures from the 2021 report revealed that 7,500 phone calls were made to Focus Ireland’s Advice & Information services, 50% more than the organisation had been anticipating.
In total, Focus Ireland engaged with roughly 12,300 customers in 2021 – at a time when homelessness was significantly lower than it is today.
Speaking to The Journal, 24-year-old Lisa Brennan described falling into homelessness when a landlord did not renew her lease.
Following a procedure to remove one of her hips, Lisa is a full-time wheelchair user. When she first engaged homelessness services, she was in a hostel for five months before spending two years in a bedsit provided by the Simon Community.
Brennan’s attitude exemplifies the energy that is demanded of Irish people facing homelessness, and said that while looking for work, she decided to also give activism a try.
“I just wanted to do something. I don’t like sitting around doing nothing. I don’t just want a change for me, I want a change for everybody. I want to be that voice for everybody, not just somebody in a wheelchair.”
Brennan says that the stability of a home has enabled her to find work five days a week in a school. “It’s given me back my independence, I can come and go to work without any issues.” She now has a one-year-old Jack Russell.
Lifetime president and founder of Focus Ireland, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy – known to all within the organisation as Sr Stan – is unsparing in her criticism of the government, recalling a speech she gave in 1987 wherein she had expressed the belief that homelessness could have been eradicated by 1990.
“Instead, the government stopped building social and public housing, and handed construction over to private sector, whose interest is profit,” Kennedy, a nun for over 60 years, said.
She removes her glasses and sighs when she says, “We are tired of being told it will take time to provide housing. We haven’t got the time.”
She points to 3,400 Irish children currently without a home – a 47% increase on this time last year.
Kennedy also notes that when one includes those who are sleeping rough, those in temporary/shelter accommodation, or those in insecure or inadequate accommodation, the number of people affected by homelessness in Ireland is more like 14,000.
Resisting the argument that homelessness is inevitable, she says that it is the result of “poor policy” and “bad political decisions”.
Homeless charities in Ireland are in something of a bind when presenting their successes. While demonstrating that they are an effective tool in managing a baseline level of homelessness, it is also incumbent upon them to lead the fight against the very thing that necessitates their existence.
Last year, the organisation supported 1,288 households to settle into a new home or keep their home. They supported 3,338 children. Their PETE (Preparation for Education, Training and Employment) programme assisted 284 adults in three counties.
Focus Ireland – and charities like them – continue to lay safety nets beneath the cracks in society, but they know those cracks will continue to widen, and deepen, unless major changes are made at a policy level.
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