Resources needed to meet homelessness deadline - Simon

THE GOVERNMENT would not meet its own aims on ending long-term homelessness by next year unless resources were immediately provided to tackle the complex needs of homeless people, an Oireachtas committee has been warned.

Patrick Burke, chief executive of the Simon Communities, addressed the Joint Committee of the Environment and Local Government yesterday and said housing was just one of the essential components of any plan to address homelessness.

“Homelessness is about more than housing. It is also about physical and mental health, it is about drug and alcohol use and it is about combinations of these problems or ‘complex needs’.”

He said the Government’s commitments as set out in the 2008 Homeless Strategy, The Way Home, to end long-term homelessness and eliminate rough sleeping by 2010, would not be realised unless the health and social care needs of people in these categories were addressed. “It is essential that these supports are properly resourced.”

A recent study of Simon’s service users in Cork illustrated the complex needs of the demographic, Mr Burke said. The study looked at the health needs of all 183 people who used Cork Simon in the first week of September.

It found 58 per cent had a diagnosed mental health condition, 48 per cent had a diagnosed physical health condition, while 77 per cent had both a physical health and a mental health condition.

Some 82 per cent reported using alcohol and almost half of these were described as “heavy users”. Thirty-nine per cent used drugs, 40 per cent of which were described as heavy users. Thirty-six per cent used both alcohol and drugs, 37 per cent of which were described as heavy users of both. Some 52 per cent of those with a diagnosed mental health condition used alcohol and/or drugs.

The study underlined how isolated, vulnerable and in need of intensive supports this group of long-term homeless people were, said Mr Burke. “It helps to build a picture of what we mean by complex needs: mental and physical ill-health; problem drug and alcohol use; fractured family relations; education and training needs; poverty and exclusion.