The young couple who slept in a city park overnight were soaked through from the rain and had come to get dry clothes. The man who grew up in a hippie family came to get his terrible burn injuries dressed. A man who worked for a health authority in England until the bottle got the better of him arrived feeling distressed, almost suicidal. An old man who visits every week talked about working on the buildings in England and living in hostels all his life.

It was a quiet morning at Trust, which is located at the basement of the Iveagh Hostel, on Bride Road in Dublin's Liberties.

Looked at one way, Trust provides a medical, clothing and showering service for homeless people. But Trust treats people with an uncommon degree of care and respect, and it is for this that it is unique.

While the young man who got soaked in the park is having a shower, Trust worker Patrick Grogan and nurse Geraldine McAuliffe are trying to find a suitable pair of jeans for him among the clothes donated by the public. They fuss over various pairs until they find the one that's just right. They take so much care you would think they were tailors fitting out a customer.

Meanwhile, the young woman who came in with him has already showered and changed into dry clothes. They usually sleep in the park or out by the Liffey around Islandbridge. Hostel spaces are very hard to get, she says, and there are too many people in them who are on drugs.

Not that life outside is easy. She sleeps under rather than in her sleeping bag so she can move fast if someone comes to rob her.

She has been spending increasingly long periods on the streets since she was 12. She cannot live in the family home but she does not specify why. Her boyfriend returns wearing dry jeans of the right size and they leave.

Trust director Alice Leahy, administrator Evelyn Magee and volunteer Noel Byrne have a quick tea break. The dean of nearby St Patrick's Cathedral wanders in to see someone, has a chat and wanders off again. He is clearly a frequent visitor.

In another room, Geraldine McAuliffe is dressing the wounds of a man who has been burned terribly. This man grew up in a hippie family in Britain and did not go to school. He fell in love with a woman who was into "white witchcraft", and they had a big marriage ceremony at Stonehenge. She worked as a nurse in a hospital and wanted to settle down. But he just could not settle to living quietly in a house.

He left Britain and at some stage came over to Ireland. Something happened about three years ago at Halloween when one side of his body was very badly burned. He says it was an accident, "just some lads", and that religion had something to do with it. He calls it "going through the fires" and he refers to it a lot, as if it marked a major turning point in his life - as indeed it did: he seems embarrassed about going back to the hippie community in Britain with his scars.

Patrick and Noel are now hauling in boxes of booklets about Trust to be sent to Transition Year students all over the State in October as part of an essay competition. Alice Leahy explains that Trust wants to raise awareness about the people whom it helps and about their entitlement to services that treat them with respect. Trust also wants to combat media stereotypes which fail to convey the uniqueness of each homeless person.

Trust started as a non-political, nondenominational body in 1975 to provide medical and related services to people who are homeless.

"In Trust we can't change the world, but we can help people to look at their lives in a different way," Leahy says. "If people go out of our door feeling no worse than when they came in, our life is worthwhile - and I think that's important."

In the small Trust office, a man who came in feeling very angry talks about how he left Ireland for a good job in England with a health authority. Drink got the better of him and he stopped turning up for work. Eventually he was sacked. He came back to Ireland before the Celtic Tiger awoke and found there was no work for him. He too suffers from the shortage of hostel places. There are certain places where he sleeps outdoors and he sometimes gets a night in a hostel. He would like to get his life together sometime soon.

Back in the main room is a man from the west of Ireland who spent his life on building sites in England. He lived in hostels throughout the entire period. He has a bed in hostel in Dublin now, though the rule is that he has to reapply for it every week. That is his home. He has been in very bad health recently and comes down to Trust every week or so.

It is part of the philosophy of Trust that they do not judge people. Some people take wrong turnings and keep on down that road. Others are born on the wrong road, with few chances in life. Some have done terrible things. Others have had terrible things done to them. In Trust all are treated with respect.

As well as respect there is humour - never malicious but enough to lighten the burden of the day.

Noel brews up more tea. Saoirse Gallagher has come to visit. Her father, Paddy, worked in Trust for 12 years, and had a marvellous way about him with homeless people because he himself had known what it was like to be homeless. He did a lot to set the tone for what Trust is today.

Paddy - retired through ill health - detests the phrase "the homeless".

"The homeless what?" he said once. "Cat, dog, mouse? Jesus, will you look at me? I'm a person."

Saoirse has been in and out of Trust since she was a schoolgirl and it is pretty clear that Trust is part of her extended family. This is part of the uniqueness of Trust - that people are at ease there, whether they are the drenched homeless couple from the city park, the Dean of St Patrick's, the journalist or the man who came in angry and left calm.

e-mail: pomorain@irish-times.ie Trust: info@trust-ireland.ie website: www.trust-ireland.ie