Opening churches for the homeless?

FutureGuy wrote: »

Ah yes, judge me without having a clue as to what I have or have not done in my life.

Well, one thing you’ve definitely not done is answer the question.

beauf wrote: »

Hes not even asked a meaningful question.

Hes just confused the meaning of the word, church. He even got the bit about the Mosque wrong.

Post #15. OP was asked if he’d opened his doors to the homeless.

At a recent talk when Fr. McVerry was asked whether people should let the homeless into their home, he said it'd be a very stupid thing to do! It's because you have no idea what problems you'd be letting in. Homeless shelters are about getting to know the person in a safe environment for both, their back story, building relationships and trust, discovering their problems, and ultimately helping them to get out of their situation (if they want to). And all done under legal guidelines for suitable accomodation and safeguarding to protect both the homeless and volunteers.

There are several Catholic organizations designed to do just that (Peter McVerry Trust, Capuchin Day Center, SVP hostels, Crosscare hostels, Morning Star Hostel, and so on). You may not be as aware of their work as the ICC in Clonskeagh. If the problem is now so great it now needs support from all faiths (and none), thank God, I say, for the charity of the ICC.

Any of the above organizations could use your donations of money or time to help alleviate the problem.

Opening up a building for a temporary few days for the homeless sounds great, but ultimately the homeless need more.

They need an accommodation plan that gets them off the street long-term.
They need food on an ongoing basis.
They need clean clothes & sleeping bags.
They need affordable accommodation units.
They need advocates like Peter McVerry who will pressurise the government to do its job.

The Catholic Church is already doing all these things.

So, since the question was why aren't 'the Catholics' doing the same thing as one mosque, the answer is that the Catholics long ago learned to help the homeless in many more effective ways.

(BTW, I am not a Catholic, but I was homeless for three years. )

Or it could conceivably cost lives. Churches aren't designed or constructed for this. We have planning codes and building regulations and laws about structures that are used for human habitation for a reason. People sleeping in a church and trying to keep warm may, for example, overload the wiring, or light fires in places where fires shouldn't be lit.

Plus, "opening a church" isn't simply a matter of leaving the doors unlocked. There needs to be supervision, there needs to be support. The Catholic church already has people working in this area, both volunteers and paid staff; are they to be pulled off the more effective projects that they are working on and diverted to this one?

If there's a need for emergency accommodation, we should be looking to expand existing, tried-and-tested models for providing it rather than trying to come up with new and worse models.

I don't intend to criticise the mosque here. They have limited resources, and opening their hall on this basis may be all they can do to alleviate the problem. But the Catholic church can do, and is already doing, and has for a long time been doing, much more effective things. If you want them to do more, you should want them to do more of those things.

FutureGuy wrote: »

Thanks for a well-structured and thoughtful post Nick and I am glad you gave your perspective.

I completely agree that the homeless need a long term solution and never once did I imply that the church should solve the problem as the the government have a crucial role to play.

I am referring to the immediate short term when there is a pending cold snap. While there are options for homeless people in our major towns and cities, the homeless in smaller areas have nowhere to turn. There are, however, churches in every town.

Would it be that much hassle to allow someone to sleep indoors on a small mattress bought for them? For that specific purpose - a short term area where they can stay during the extremely cold nights. Again, it is not a solution but it could save a life.

The Catholic church has often been targeted as an organisation that should provide and when it does provide it tends to be targeted for legal actions.

Anyway the Islamic Mosque and cultural centre in Clonskeagh is a wonderful facility and we should be greatful that it is being provided. There is shower facilities a restaurant and space. Hopefully this either fulfils whatever regulations are in place for providing accommodation or if it does not no legal actions are taken against them for providing it.

The closes the Catholic church could do to matching this is opening up schools which it patronises and partially funds to the homeless. The schools have halls with space, often have a canteen or the ability to cook food and showers.

Unfortunately the schools already operate schools and to open up these facilities to the homeless would invite the religious orders to legal action from the state (which also partially funds the schools).

Any facilities owned by the churches suitable for accomodating the homeless are used for that purpose or used for another purpose and the church would be opening themselves for legal action. The provision of unsuitable facilities would be much like Apollo house where the homeless occupied a derelict office block. If nama and the state (being the owners of the office block) allowed the homeless to stay the homeless occupying the property could have sued nama for providing poor facilities.