Soup Kitchen for the homeless closed by Garda in Grafton St

C.K Dexter Haven · 23-09-2015 09:07PM

fleet_admiral wrote: »

Yeah Charlemont street would be much better

More footfall on Wicklow st though, specially that hour of the night

Dr.Internet · 23-09-2015 09:11PM

how many homeless organisations are there in Dublin?

this guy was on joe duffy yesterday, a different guy from a different org was on today

between those 2 organisations alone they claim to have approx 40 volunteers. That's one volunteer for every three homeless people if you take the indos 120 people. There are more organisations which would reduce the ratio to more volunteers than homeless people.

The families in the hotels are already being fed and watered are they not?

Spanish Eyes · 23-09-2015 09:14PM

It's becoming an industry in itself.

How many homeless charities are there now? Probably more than there are homeless.

And costing us more in grants, salaries, etc. for each and every one of them, than it would be to home people I think.

We need to wake up and make people accountable for all our taxes. And that obviously includes those who outsource these charities.

Stheno · 23-09-2015 09:23PM

Dr.Internet wrote: »

The families in the hotels are already being fed and watered are they not?

Yeah but imagine being confined to a hotel room with kids, and trying to keep them in school etc.

paleoperson · 23-09-2015 09:28PM

Stheno wrote: »

Yeah but imagine being confined to a hotel room with kids, and trying to keep them in school etc.

So what do you want, a free house?

C.K Dexter Haven · 23-09-2015 09:29PM

paleoperson wrote: »

So what do you want, a free house?

nope, a "home".

JustTheOne · 23-09-2015 09:30PM

C.K Dexter Haven wrote: »

nope, a "home".

So a free house?

Imagine all the people suddenly homeless if we start handing out houses.

Stheno · 23-09-2015 09:31PM

paleoperson wrote: »

So what do you want, a free house?

Eh I live in a house, I was simply pointing out that being housed in a hotel room is not comparable to a house/apartment.

C.K Dexter Haven · 23-09-2015 09:32PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

So a free house?

Imagine all the people suddenly homeless if we start handing out houses.

nope, a home:)

paleoperson · 23-09-2015 09:34PM

C.K Dexter Haven wrote: »

nope, a home:)

Please stop putting a smiley after all your posts. It's really obnoxious.

Don't try to get funnies with me, just stop. *shrug* Stop.

23-09-2015 09:35PM

I heard him interviewed by, I think Joe Duffy, in the week and he really means well. However, he has to take some responsibility for his actions, but applying for the proper permits. Just because they are homeless doesn't mean that they should be served food that may not be prepared to standards fit for human consumption.

C.K Dexter Haven · 23-09-2015 09:36PM

paleoperson wrote: »

Please stop putting a smiley after all your posts. It's really obnoxious.

Don't try to get funnies with me, just stop. *shrug* Stop.

OK, but it's still a home they're looking for:)

JustTheOne · 23-09-2015 09:38PM

C.K Dexter Haven wrote: »

OK, but it's still a home they're looking for:)

Like 99.9% of the population too.

C.K Dexter Haven · 23-09-2015 09:41PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

Like 99.9% of the population too.

Indeed.

JustTheOne · 23-09-2015 09:43PM

C.K Dexter Haven wrote: »

Indeed.

And what do people do when they want a home?

C.K Dexter Haven · 23-09-2015 09:44PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

And what do people do when they want a home?

I don't know Uncle JusTheOne, why don't you tell us all:)

micosoft · 23-09-2015 09:52PM

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

It's becoming an industry in itself.

How many homeless charities are there now? Probably more than there are homeless.

And costing us more in grants, salaries, etc. for each and every one of them, than it would be to home people I think.

We need to wake up and make people accountable for all our taxes. And that obviously includes those who outsource these charities.

This.

We have less actual homeless in Dublin (rough sleepers) then Oslo. Or pretty much any UK city.

So more people are employed in the homeless sector in Dublin then are homeless. Over 900 people in Dublin alone!

The Government spends 32k every year PER homeless person.

We spent €12m on homeless services in 2002 and now spend about €100m. Yet we are now in crisis despite the number of homes built since 2002 and the fact we are a wealthier country (all elements of society) much increased dole and much increased social transfers.

My view at this point as someone who has worked with and in the non-profit sector is that an industry has been created by people who want to make money out of homelessness and have no interest in solving it.

We need to shut down the industry, give those that need homes and are capable of living in a home (which I don't believe there are any) and move the money to mental health and addiction services which is the actual problem. And realise that some people, not matter how much you do for them, will self destruct and be homeless. And in a free society you can't do much about it unless you are willing to countenance detaining people.

iguana · 23-09-2015 09:57PM

Stheno wrote: »

Eh I live in a house, I was simply pointing out that being housed in a hotel room is not comparable to a house/apartment.

Living of a hotel for an extended period would no doubt utterly suck. Especially if you have kids. But it's even less comparable to sleeping on the streets than it is to having a house. You are warm, dry, safe, secure and have a bathroom. And while you mightn't have access to cooking and washing facilities you have a steady income that will cover the use of laundry services and meals. If you can get to a community centre you will have cheap healthy dinners daily. I'm not saying that it's even remotely ideal and it is absolutely a problem that needs addressing. But it's a very, very, very different prospect from sleeping on the streets, being cold, frequently wet and at constant risk of being robbed and abused.

paleoperson · 23-09-2015 10:02PM

iguana wrote: »

Living of a hotel for an extended period would no doubt utterly suck.

You realize that some people live their entire lives in apartments and it's their first choice right?

Larianne · 23-09-2015 10:03PM

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

I saw this in action before and whoever thinks it's a good idea to draw every homeless person in Dublin into the center of Grafton Street on busy weekend nights is an idiot.

Barely There wrote: »

Good.
Grafton Street is a completely inappropriate place for a soup kitchen.
Well done to the Council and Guards.

There is usually at least 10 people sleeping rough outside shops on Grafton Street every night. I counted 15 homeless people on my walk from Central Bank, up Dame Street and Grafton Street one Sunday morning.

CatFromHue · 23-09-2015 10:05PM

micosoft wrote: »

This.

We have less actual homeless in Dublin (rough sleepers) then Oslo. Or pretty much any UK city.

So more people are employed in the homeless sector in Dublin then are homeless. Over 900 people in Dublin alone!

The Government spends 32k every year PER homeless person.

We spent €12m on homeless services in 2002 and now spend about €100m. Yet we are now in crisis despite the number of homes built since 2002 and the fact we are a wealthier country (all elements of society) much increased dole and much increased social transfers.

My view at this point as someone who has worked with and in the non-profit sector is that an industry has been created by people who want to make money out of homelessness and have no interest in solving it.

We need to shut down the industry, give those that need homes and are capable of living in a home (which I don't believe there are any) and move the money to mental health and addiction services which is the actual problem. And realise that some people, not matter how much you do for them, will self destruct and be homeless. And in a free society you can't do much about it unless you are willing to countenance detaining people.

That's a really interesting article.

So many are surprised to learn that a lot of those counted as 'homeless' actually live in long-term supported accommodation and are not sleeping rough as is commonly imagined.
The information on 'rough sleepers' like Jonathan Corrie - who make up a small proportion of these figures - also shows interesting long-term trends: Dublin is currently estimated to have 168 rough sleepers, compared to 185 in November 2013 and 312 in 2002.
Nationally, it is estimated that there are a further 46 rough sleepers, according to housing authorities across the country in their end-of-year performance reports for 2013.

So if

figures show that 120 people were sleeping on the capital’s streets on Monday night. Another 50 people sheltered at Simon’s night cafe.

and the article was written in 2014 it looks like the problem is actually getting better?! :eek:

JustTheOne · 23-09-2015 10:05PM

Larianne wrote: »

There is usually at least 10 people sleeping rough outside shops on Grafton Street every night. I counted 15 homeless people on my walk from Central Bank, up Dame Street and Grafton Street one Sunday morning.

There is accommodation offered every night to homeless people but most wrong refuse because they can't take drink or drugs in the accommodation.

The lad who died outside the Dail refused a roof over his head the night he died.

doolox · 23-09-2015 10:14PM

This homeless crisis all started when the council started to abolish bedsits and increase house standards and sizes which put the cost of even the smallest house beyond the reach of the average worker esp in Dublin. Add to this the 20% requirement for a deposit and stagnant wages and increasingly shorter working hours, contingent and casual working or no jobs at all and you have a recipe for disaster.
Little or no houses have been built since 2007 but there is still a year on year demand for new units from the 60 thousand or so who leave our schools every year and eventually get married and need to set up a new family unit. I was talking to a doctor the other day who told me that the life expectancy of Irish people has gone up from 68 to 84 in the last 20 yrs...another delay put on the supply of housing for the early 20 yr olds coming onto the market in ever increasing numbers. Add to this the thousands of people coming here to work and you need a lot of houses built NOW.

Most of these are needed in the Dublin city area as the commuter belt will become unusable in 10 to 20 yrs time as dear petrol militates against long commutes. This will become a huge problem when oil becomes scarce.

You need to get rid of any bureaucratic nonsense standing in the way of housing units being put on sites as fast as possible, as high as possible and as simply as possible. You need to get rid of pious middle class concerns for environment aesthetics or other niceties that are condemning people to another night out in the cold.

You need simple basic houses that can be modified and added to when money and resources from the occupiers themselves allow. If they can be built by the people themselves so much the better but this is becoming increasingly difficult as materials and methods etc become more technically advanced and specialized. Why have advanced fitted kitchens, bathrooms and fitted wardrobes in houses all at once, adding to the cost of a housing unit when these could be added later???? Get the needy people in off the streets now into simple but secure housing and worry about the fancy stuff later.

50 yrs ago my father had to obtain a county council loan to build a house which he managed to do with direct labour on a site he bought from a local farmer when times were a lot tougher in different ways than now. We as a family lived on bare floorboards and second hand mattresses for a few years and things were added gradually as money was earned and supply of cash allowed things to be added. Many people built there own houses or modified or extended existing houses in an organic way with little or no input from architects, engineers, bureaucrats, planners etc who can often only think of middle class solutions for middle class people. What he did 50 yrs ago would be impossible now and most people today need to get help from parents loans from credit unions, cash in hand from near relatives etc to cobble together the huge deposits required for housing now.

Fr_Dougal · 23-09-2015 10:16PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

There is accommodation offered every night to homeless people but most wrong refuse because they can't take drink or drugs in the accommodation.

The lad who died outside the Dail refused a roof over his head the night he died.

Wasn't the same guy bought at least one house by his family but he sold them?

At this rate it won't be long before people renting accommodation can be classed as "homeless ".

FloatingVoter · 23-09-2015 10:16PM

JustTheOne wrote: »

There is accommodation offered every night to homeless people but most wrong refuse because they can't take drink or drugs in the accommodation.

The lad who died outside the Dail refused a roof over his head the night he died.

There are homeless people raising their kids in hotel rooms across the city while NAMA owned apartments lie empty the length of Cork Street (for one local example).
Jonathan Corrie died of hypothermia. Lots of heroin addicts refuse accomodation in wet hostels in fear of going back on the junk. Places in dry hostels are normally taken fast. Others will die this winter and not be so kind to the chattering classes as to die within yards of the biggest dosshouse in the land.

Azalea · 23-09-2015 10:19PM

A hotel room doesn't have a kitchen, and it is limited living/storage space for a family, so comparing it with an apartment is not comparing like with like.

But it is of course better than sleeping rough, and I really dislike the way people blame the government for homelessness rather than examining the individual factors that lead to a person being homeless, which aren't generally the government's fault. And it's not as if there aren't support services for homeless people. The difficulty is the fear some people have of the shelters, which can be intimidating places I've no doubt. But sometimes help can be refused by choice too, and mental illness can inform these choices.

It's a complicated issue, and blanket blaming rather than coming up with alternatives, doesn't help.

JustTheOne · 23-09-2015 10:21PM

FloatingVoter wrote: »

There are homeless people raising their kids in hotel rooms across the city while NAMA owned apartments lie empty the length of Cork Street (for one local example).
Jonathan Corrie died of hypothermia. Lots of heroin addicts refuse accomodation in wet hostels in fear of going back on the junk. Places in dry hostels are normally taken fast. Others will die this winter and not be so kind to the chattering classes as to die within yards of the biggest dosshouse in the land.

No sympathy for heroin users at all.

FloatingVoter · 23-09-2015 10:23PM

Hatless wrote: »

A hotel room doesn't have a kitchen, and it is limited living/storage space for a family, so comparing it with an apartment is not comparing like with like.

Exactly - I wasn't stating hotel room as"lap of Luxury". Unless we're talking penthouse suite in a 5 star there is no way you could raise a young family in one and not go nuts. An apartment would be 10 steps up from any hotel room bar the poshest (and those rooms are not where they are hiding the problem).

Gatling · 23-09-2015 10:27PM

FloatingVoter wrote: »

There are homeless people raising their kids in hotel rooms across the city while NAMA owned apartments lie empty the length of Cork Street (for one local example)

And local authorities regularly turn down properties offered by nama at one point nama offered 400 + properties to local authorities in dublin ,
How many were accepted ...... 4 if remember correctly

JustTheOne · 23-09-2015 10:28PM

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Exactly - I wasn't stating hotel room as"lap of Luxury". Unless we're talking penthouse suite in a 5 star there is no way you could raise a young family in one and not go nuts. An apartment would be 10 steps up from any hotel room bar the poshest (and those rooms are not where they are hiding the problem).

Seen the family staying in a hotel looking for a house in the paper.

Mother 26, 3 kids oldest kid 9.

Where's the planning and taken responsibility for your kids financially?

You can't just have 3 kids and expect society to pay for them and house you with them.

Soup Kitchen for the homeless closed by Garda in Grafton St

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