If Dublin wants to be a city for everyone, it must tackle homelessness

Opinionfalling off the agenda

Seven in 10 people experiencing homelessness are in Dublin. The city now needs its own dedicated strategy to deal with this issue once and for all.

DUBLIN IS AT the epicentre of homelessness in Ireland. Homelessness is deeply isolating and stigmatising for those experiencing it, but in a large city it is also a collective experience. When we fail to provide enough homes for our whole community, the consequences are felt not only by those forced into emergency accommodation or onto the streets, but by the city we all share.

This is why homelessness must be part of any serious conversation about Dublin’s future. Improving our capital city means directly confronting a failure that continues to impact thousands of its residents. Every policy, every service provided, every state and semi-state body should be operating in the context of the reality that Dublin has an enduring and systemic homelessness crisis.

Seven in every 10 people experiencing homelessness are in the capital. More than 12,000 people in the city now are in emergency accommodation, an 8% increase compared to last year, while the numbers of those sleeping rough are increasing too. The latest monthly homeless figures show that the people residing in emergency accommodation increased by 358 last month to 17,885, a new record. Of the 7,304 single adults in emergency accommodation nationally, 4,881 are in Dublin.

Figures released to RTÉ One’s Prime Time found that one in 10 people who are homeless are living in a very small, confined area of the north inner city.

We at Dublin Simon Community would like nothing more than to become less necessary. We want to be shrinking, not expanding. We want homelessness to be prevented, rather than managed after it has occurred. Yet the reality is that our services are needed now more than ever.

Why are we ignoring homelessness?

To address the challenge head-on, we need an integrated and dedicated strategy to tackle homelessness in Dublin, one that allows the state, local authorities, service providers and our health system to work together to come up with a solution and to move from reactive responses to proactive prevention.

Introduced by the government, the Dublin City Taskforce headed by Robert Watt continues to pursue several welcome recommendations about the future of our nation’s capital. Among the proposals are the creation of a 10-year Integrated Area Strategy, development of key sites such as the GPO, and working with An Garda Síochána on policing strategies.

The Dublin City Taskforce is wise to focus on what is positive because there is plenty to build on. Dublin can and should be an incredible place to live in. There is already a lot to celebrate. But if we want to realise a true, inclusive and lasting vision for Dublin, we also need to focus on what is not working. And that includes our failure to execute an effective response to the homelessness crisis.

On Dublin’s streets, homelessness is not hidden in doorways after dark. It is in plain sight as we go about our daily business – a figure under a sleeping bag in a doorway as people hurry past; a woman carrying everything she owns in a few plastic bags; people queuing quietly for food; young men trying to sleep in tents exposed to cold, fear and violence.

Behind every figure is a life. Somebody’s son or daughter, brother or sister, reduced to the exhausting daily search for somewhere safe to eat or sleep.

Encouragingly, the foundations for a ‘joined-up’ approach already exist. The creation of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) in 2011 was an acknowledgement that Dublin faced specific and growing challenges around housing and homelessness. The DRHE is led by Dublin City Council and operates as a shared service across Dublin’s four local authorities: Dublin City, Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

The reorganisation of the HSE has similarly created a more regional approach to managing people’s needs, moving from one centralised structure to nine and ultimately six operational regions.

Why Dublin is key

Dublin is already subject to a vast range of reports, plans and strategies. The problem is not a lack of ideas. The pieces of the puzzle are there. What is missing is the alignment needed to address the root causes of housing insecurity and homelessness, and a mechanism for sharing knowledge and coordinating funding specifically across the greater Dublin region. That means opportunities to learn from what works to prevent homelessness earlier, to improve emergency accommodation and, ultimately, to deliver more homes.

This dedicated Dublin Homelessness strategy and budget, led and funded by national government, can operate with a clear focus on delivery towards 2030. It can work hand in glove with initiatives such as the Dublin Taskforce to secure the provision of social, affordable and cost-rental housing, supported by direct and sustained capital investment.

The government has already committed, through its national housing plan, to delivering 300,000 homes by the end of 2030, alongside ambitions to end homelessness, deliver homes for older people and increase social inclusion. The opportunity now is to make Dublin a focused delivery area within that national ambition.

The Dublin strategy should provide an overarching framework to review, integrate and coordinate existing policies and funding priorities, from the Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025–2030 document to the National Drugs Strategy.

To ensure urgent delivery of such a strategy, government should establish a Dublin Homelessness Crisis Team reporting directly across the relevant departments and agencies.

Its task should be to oversee implementation and to align housing, health, social protection, justice and local authority responses within a single delivery framework. This approach can facilitate multiannual funding for homelessness services.

This is not about creating another layer of bureaucracy. It is about making the structures we already have work together.

The Dublin City Taskforce has set out an ambitious mission: “More people living in the city centre, streets that look cleaner and feel safer, and a healthy, vibrant, always-on city that respects its heritage.”

But if we want more people to live in Dublin, we must first make sure that people can afford to live here.

If we want safer, cleaner and more vibrant streets, we must address the housing insecurity that is visible on those streets every day. And if we want a city that works for everyone, we must put housing at the centre of our definition of our quality of life.

Dublin does not need another collection of disconnected initiatives. It needs a strategy that brings them together, a budget that backs it up and a delivery structure with the authority to make it happen.

If Dublin is to become the city we know it can be, tackling homelessness must be at the heart of the plan.

Catherine Kenny is CEO of Dublin Simon Community.