First 40 new Dublin homeless beds available from Monday

Four office blocks and one hotel could be made available by Nama to provide emergency accommodation for homeless people sleeping on Dublin’s streets.

The agency was one of more than 50 groups to attend meetings with Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly on Thursday to explore measures to alleviate homelessness in Dublin.

The meetings were convened following the death of homeless man Jonathan Corrie (43) a short distance from Leinster House earlier this week. A postmortem was inconclusive, but results of toxicology tests are awaited to see what role, if any, drugs played in his death.

It is understood Nama identified four office buildings ranging in size from 3,000sq ft to 20,000sq ft in the north inner city, at Talbot Street, Blackhall Place, Ormond Quay and Smithfield.

The vacant offices offered by the agency would require some alteration to make them suitable for residential use, but a 100-bedroom hotel in the Tallaght area, also under the control of Nama, could be made available in the short term.

Urgency

The agency is also providing a facility on the South Circular Road with room for up to 50 people which will be available for use within the next two weeks.

“Nama appreciates the urgency of this situation and will do everything in its power to make units available as quickly as possible,” a spokesman said.

After Thursday’s meeting, Mr Kelly pledged the number of emergency places would be increased by 220 to offer all homeless people sleeping on Dublin’s streets beds by Christmas.

Following discussions on Friday with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, the chief executive of the Peter McVerry Trust, Pat Doyle, said that number had been increased to 260, and the first 40 beds would be available on Monday, through a joint venture between the trust and Focus Ireland.

A further 36 beds in the Dublin 8 area, administered by the trust, would be available on December 22nd. A 40-bed unit, offered by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, run by Crosscare, was also expected to open in the coming weeks. Mr Doyle said he expected to be given details of funding for the new beds following the Cabinet subcommittee meeting early next week.

“We were asked to submit an idea of costs – what we’ve said is it costs €400,000-€600,000 a year to run a 20-30 bed unit. We will need to be properly resourced to do this.”

Housing charity

Meanwhile, the housing charity behind a newly built €17 million State-funded senior citizens complex said it would make the 99-bed complex immediately available to

Dublin City Council

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The Catholic Housing Aid Society has been in negotiations with the council since July over the rent it can charge to tenants of the new Fr Scully House complex.

Speaking in Armagh on Friday, where he was attending a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said “tea and sympathy” will not solve the crisis.

"Tea and sympathy takes nobody off the streets," Mr Kenny said following a walk around Dublin with Lord Mayor Christy Burke. "What I saw last night was a revelation and, believe me, it's quite a sobering thought, and not just a thought. An openness and a frankness to meet people on the streets for a variety of reasons."