Coveney pledges to fight for continued funds for homeless

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has pledged to argue strongly at Cabinet that the government should maintain funding for homeless services at €50 million as a new report shows the number of homeless in Cork grew last year by the largest amount in four years.

“As a government we have tried to maintain funding for homelessness through a very difficult period when funding was pratically being cut in every other area. We have been spending around €50 million a year on homelessness,” said Mr Coveney.

“Clearly that needs to increase and when we can afford to do that we will but in the meantime we need to ensure that we spend money in a way that gets the maximum value for that spend and that means working with organisations like Simon and others.”

Mr Coveney was responding to a warning from Cork Simon chief executive Dermot Kavanagh that without continued investment there can be little hope of the government achieving its stated policy aim of ending long term homelessness by 2016.

Commenting on Cork Simon's report for 2012, Mr Kavanagh said it was "hard to believe that over 1,000 people in this small city had to turn to Cork Simon Community for help in 2012 and that we had 161 people rough sleeping for one night or more than last year.

“Such high numbers have not been seen since 2008 and it’s an indication of the high toll that this recession is beginning to take,” said Mr Kavanagh.

He was speaking at the launch of the report today, which found in 2012 Cork Simon assisted 1,026 people including 860 men and 166 women.

The report found 161 people were sleeping rough on at least one night in 2012, representing a 33 per cent increase on the equivalent figure for 2011, a 210 per cent increase onthe 2010 figure and a 41 per cent increase on the 2009 figure.

The number of people sleeping rough began to rise in May 2012 , peaking in October when an average of ten people a night were sleeping rough on the streets of Cork, the report notes.

The numbers began to fall in November when Simon added extra beds in its emergency shelter, but the report noted that among those sleeping rough, some 20 per cent were women and 19 per cent were 18-26 year olds.

A total of 410 different people stayed at Cork Simon’s emergency shelter throughout 2012. The shelter now has a capacity for 48, and was full every night last year.

Some 18 per cent of those using the emergency shelter were women, 23 per cent were 18-26 year olds, 41 per cent were staying at the shelter for the first time, 54 per cent stayed at the shelter for seven days or less while 17p per cent were long term homeless who stayed for more than six months.

The report also shows that 592 people availed of Cork Simon’s soup run in 2012 of whom 15 per cent were women, 26 per cent were sleeping rough, 15 per cent were living in a squat and 52 per cent were in private rented housing on the edge of homelessness.