Tackling homelessness in Ireland - where does all the money go?

RobYourBuilder · 03-02-2015 1:11am #1

Figures from the CSO tell us that there are about 3,800 homeless people in the state. Given that the population of the country is 4.5 million, that figure doesn't seem enormous. We're also warned that this figure is 'exploding upwards' - that we face a 'tsunami' of homelessness. In fact, figures from the CSO show the trend to be downwards and that circa 200 are actually sleeping rough. The number fluctuates.

The Irish taxpayer hands over €120 million annually to the homeless industry. The quangos and various other charities operating under this rubric. As this doesn't include the vast sums that they raise in charitable donations, there's a minimum €35,000 for each homeless person and realistically it must be nearer to double that. That is enough to put them up full-time in a four star hotel with no additional costs incurred.

So where is all the money going?

Sources:http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/census-finds-3800-people-homeless-26895895.html
http://www.environ.ie/en/DevelopmentHousing/Housing/SpecialNeeds/HomelessPeople/

mzungu · 03-02-2015 1:34am

This article gives a good overview http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/the-homeless-industry-also-has-questions-to-answer-30804937.html

the 23 homeless charities in Dublin employ nearly 900 full-time equivalent employees in statutory and voluntary homeless services and several hundred more on a part-time basis.

CSO filings examined for 2013 show that the top 12 homeless charities receive over €78m in income of which well over €25m is spent on staff payroll.

Mr_Muffin · 03-02-2015 1:39am

It goes to train and equip players for the 2017 homeless world cup.

Guy:Incognito · 03-02-2015 2:17am

mzungu wrote: »

This article gives a good overview http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/the-homeless-industry-also-has-questions-to-answer-30804937.html

Itd be cheaper to just employ all the homeless people.

kneemos · 03-02-2015 2:35am

mzungu wrote: »

This article gives a good overview http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/the-homeless-industry-also-has-questions-to-answer-30804937.html

900 full time staff for 2600 homeless,plus part timers.
Something ain't right.

Mr. Incognito · 03-02-2015 2:36am

I never give money to homeless charities, i just buy sambos and food and give it directly to a homeless person.

I passed 9 charities collecting christmas eve on grafton street and five homeless people on the way to Heuston.

Its a racket

Also as its cash i suspect the money declared is shy and some surely is "miscounted" on the way to the bank.

nokia69 · 03-02-2015 3:33am

kneemos wrote: »

900 full time staff for 2600 homeless,plus part timers.
Something ain't right.

Indeed, homelessness is the source of employment for not negligible numbers of the middle classes. The poor, wrote a sixteenth-century German bishop, are a gold mine; and so, it turns out, are the homeless. For example, in one hostel for the homeless that I visited, located in a rather grand but disused and deconsecrated Victorian church, I discovered that there were ninety-one residents and forty-one staff members, only a handful of whom had any direct contact with the objects of their ministrations

Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom, pp. 125-126

Kermit.de.frog · 03-02-2015 3:53am

Charity has been an industry for at least 20 years. It's not in their interest to end anything.

Same with nicorette - are they going to bring out the miracle cure to smoking anytime soon?

No is the answer because the cure has become the problem for their profits.

ComfortKid · 03-02-2015 3:56am

Serious question. With 188 per week,rent allowance and various other benefits, How is anyone homeless in this Country?

Turtwig · 03-02-2015 4:10am

ComfortKid wrote: »

Serious question. With 188 per week,rent allowance and various other benefits, How is anyone homeless in this Country?

Shortage of accommodation and

Personal problems, it's kind of like asking why is anyone depressed? People fall on hard times and circumstances and for various reasons may not seek the aids available to them. It takes a huge deal of mental strength to reintegrate yourself into society after you've endured a stint of being homeless. Couple that with actually resolving all other problems and hopefully you've got some appreciation of why homelessness exists.

mariaalice · 03-02-2015 9:56am

I don't mind giving to homeless charities I don't think they are all a racket there is a lot of accountability for any organisation who get public money and that's how it should be ( although apparently Alice Leahy of trust wont take public money ).

What I strongly object to are the fundraising ads that don't tell the truth about homelessness and the fact that some of their services users ( no matter what charity ) will never be housed or will move in and out of homelessness ( rough sleeping ) all their lives, the fact that the vast majority off homelessness is causer by addiction, coming from a dysfunctional familyl and so on.

conorhal · 03-02-2015 10:01am

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

I never give money to homeless charities, i just buy sambos and food and give it directly to a homeless person.

I passed 9 charities collecting christmas eve on grafton street and five homeless people on the way to Heuston.

Its a racket

Also as its cash i suspect the money declared is shy and some surely is "miscounted" on the way to the bank.

That's why I donate to the Capuchin Day Center, 100% volunteer run, no employees, no expensive advertising campaigns, no 'effin chuggers, just helping people and never refusing sombody at their door.

http://www.capuchindaycentre.ie/Capuchin_Day_Centre_2013/Capuchin_Day_Centre_for_Homeless_People.html

whiskeyman · 03-02-2015 10:05am

Many of our homeless are currently being put up in hotels as 'emergency accommodation', and may who have kids are getting taxis (paid for) to school.
Until we sort out the property mess here, there's going to be more cost zapping stories like this going on...

Not all 'homeless' have lived on the street.

mariaalice · 03-02-2015 10:08am

conorhal wrote: »

That's why I donate to the Capuchin Day Center, 100% volunteer run, no employees, no expensive advertising campaigns, no 'effin chuggers, just helping people and never refusing sombody at their door.

http://www.capuchindaycentre.ie/Capuchin_Day_Centre_2013/Capuchin_Day_Centre_for_Homeless_People.html

I never give to any charity that employ chuggers.

the groutch · 03-02-2015 10:38am

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

So where is all the money going?

Angela Kerins

yipeeeee · 03-02-2015 11:05am

Kind of puts into context people calling for people to burn the dail down and shoot Enda when that fella died on the street even though he sold two houses to fund a drug habit and refused accommodation.

We have a high number of uneducated band wagon jumpers who blame the government for everything wrong in their little worlds.

Kim Lardassian · 03-02-2015 11:08am

ComfortKid wrote: »

Serious question. With 188 per week,rent allowance and various other benefits, How is anyone homeless in this Country?

I don't mean to offend you but that's a very ignorant and/or naive question you've just asked.

Personal circumstances vary widely. A lot of people would have addiction issues and their priorities might not be in the right order. They could be in debt or unable to manage their finances effectively.

My dad was an alcoholic and was always going around with money hanging out of his pockets or stuck to his trouser leg! He wasn't taking care of himself and was always losing money and was unable to cope with daily life.

I recently spoke to a young homeless guy who'd been thrown out of his family home for robbing from them to feed his addiction. He had gotten himself into so much debt and owed money to so many people that it became this overwhelming mess.

It's not as if all of these people sit down each week with a calculator and a ledger and organize their finances for the coming week.

People fall behind with money too and it can be very hard to climb back out of a hole. What if somebody robbed money from a homeless guy in a shelter or on the street and he owed out money. Suddenly he's out of pocket but the debt remains. It's very easy to fall into financial difficulty and even easier if you're not in a clear sober peace of mind.

mariaalice · 03-02-2015 11:14am

yipeeeee wrote: »

Kind of puts into context people calling for people to burn the dail down and shoot Enda when that fella died on the street even though he sold two houses to fund a drug habit and refused accommodation.

We have a high number of uneducated band wagon jumpers who blame the government for everything wrong in their little worlds.

I don't agree with victim blaming, however we have to get to the reality of the situation and be honest enough as a society to say no matter what there will always be homelessness and dysfunctional people and society has to help them out because of compassion and a concern for human dignity.

AlexisM · 03-02-2015 12:23pm

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

Figures from the CSO tell us that there are about 3,800 homeless people in the state. ...The Irish taxpayer hands over €120 million annually to the homeless industry. ...there's a minimum €35,000 for each homeless person and realistically it must be nearer to double that. That is enough to put them up full-time in a four star hotel with no additional costs incurred.

I'm not in any way a fan of our many bloated charities but your argument isn't really logical here. It is likely that without all the funding there would be many thousands more homeless. So to divide cost by numbers currently homeless is meaningless. If the homeless industry did a fantastic job and took all but one person off the street, would you think that the homeless industry was spending €120M on just one person? You need an idea of how many people are helped each year before you can judge the cost per person - you are just looking at the 'failures' - the ones still on the street (which as pointed out can have cause which can't be solved by money alone).

suicide_circus · 03-02-2015 12:25pm

AlexisM wrote: »

I'm not in any way a fan of our many bloated charities but your argument isn't really logical here. It is likely that without all the funding there would be many thousands more homeless. So to divide cost by numbers currently homeless is meaningless. If the homeless industry did a fantastic job and took all but one person off the street, would you think that the homeless industry was spending €120M on just one person? You need an idea of how many people are helped each year before you can judge the cost per person - you are just looking at the 'failures' - the ones still on the street (which as pointed out can have cause which can't be solved by money alone).

That's a fair point actually. However I would still view homeless as an industry of sorts and the day homeless ends many many people will lose their jobs.

mariaalice · 03-02-2015 1:10pm

suicide_circus wrote: »

That's a fair point actually. However I would still view homeless as an industry of sorts and the day homeless ends many many people will lose their jobs.

But its never going to end ( that does not mean as a society we should not have the goal od ending homelessness ).

In fact as society get more regularised and wealthy its get harder and harder to maintain a stake in society for example it is good to get rid of poor quality accommodation such as bedsits however that put pressure on those who just about hanging on.

We have a society become tolerant of homosexuality and all kinds of sexual difference ( and that good ) however we have become less tolerant of of oddness and other way of not fitting in and an often harsh attitude to those needing help from the state.

ProKitzel · 04-02-2015 9:19am

There are hundreds of empty houses owned by the government. Some are in need of repair but rather than use taxpayers money responsibly to carry out often minor repair work they waste it on pointless "charities" and put the majority in to hostels. For the "charities" there's a lot of money to be made and the salaries are outrageous. The "charities" are already getting more than they need from the government but also go out with collection tins to scam even more money from the gullible public who don't realise the whole thing is a money making scam. It's all basically wasted away on pointless schemes and administration. A not for profit "charity" = waste every penny they get.

dRNk SAnTA · 04-02-2015 1:46pm

Because homelessness isn't just caused by houselessness.

Despite much of the crap you hear on the radio, most people aren't homeless simply because they're poor. They are usually addicted to something, have a mental health issue etc. Their lifestyles are seriously messed up.

Compared to many other countries, Ireland has a generous social welfare system and nobody is going to starve here. However we don't seem to be very good at helping people with addiction and bringing them back into normal society. Giving many of these people cash often doesn't actually help them, and giving them a house tomorrow wouldn't fix their problems.

We are always good at coming up with "emergency" hostel beds, but not so good at tailored, long term support and rehab.

RobYourBuilder · 04-02-2015 1:57pm

Would the money be better spent if it was used to provide more addiction support, drug treatment centres and better mental health services?

K4t · 04-02-2015 3:17pm

Thread: Man gets €840 a week on welfare: 500 posts and 27,000 views in just over 24 hours.

Thread: Tackling homelessness in Ireland - where does all the money go?: 23 posts and 1,000 views in just over 24 hours.

Just an observation.

Jon Stark · 04-02-2015 3:25pm

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

Figures from the CSO tell us that there are about 3,800 homeless people in the state. Given that the population of the country is 4.5 million, that figure doesn't seem enormous. We're also warned that this figure is 'exploding upwards' - that we face a 'tsunami' of homelessness. In fact, figures from the CSO show the trend to be downwards and that circa 200 are actually sleeping rough. The number fluctuates.

The CSO are never going to get a true count of how many people are homeless, especially of those who are rough sleeping and not staying in hostels.

I participated in a rough count of Dublin before and we were told to respect those who wish to be invincible. That basically meant we couldn't venture into poorly lit alleys, go off route in places such as the Phoenix Park or enter abandoned buildings.

Thus, it's a bigger problem than the stats suggest. That being said, I firmly believe that the sector has been woefully mismanaged as well as funds.

harry Bailey esq · 04-02-2015 3:49pm

ComfortKid wrote: »

Serious question. With 188 per week,rent allowance and various other benefits, How is anyone homeless in this Country?

Contrary to what many believe,the rent allowance system is not the big free for all that often gets reported. For one,its extremely difficult to qualify for,especially if a single person makes the application. Secondly,when sombody is fortunate enough to meet all the criteria and actually qualifies for the payment,they then have more hassle to go though.Because landlords who accept R/A are fairly thin on the ground, and even when the potential tenant finds such a landlord a deposit and a months rent need to be found. It really isn't a simple process,and can bean extremely worrysome and stressful time.

mzungu · 04-02-2015 5:07pm

RobYourBuilder wrote: »

Would the money be better spent if it was used to provide more addiction support, drug treatment centres and better mental health services?

There is definitely a lot to be said for treating the root cause of the problem. As others in this thread have pointed out, homelessness is usually a symptom of a much larger problem in the lives of those affected.

Tackling homelessness in Ireland - where does all the money go?

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