Labour TD Joanna Tuffy
Stephen O’Brien, in yesterday’s Sunday Times, reported that, according to Labour TD Joanna Tuffy, some homeless charities – specifically Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust – need to ‘step up to the plate’ in relation to the homeless crisis.
Mr O’Brien reported:
Joanna Tuffy, a Labour TD, claimed two of the country’s largest homeless charities, Focus Ireland and the Peter McVerry Trust, should be doing more to provide social housing given their capacity and expertise.
The Housing Finance Agency (HFA) has confirmed that just five out of 13 charities registered as approved housing bodies (AHBs) have applied to it for funding. Focus Ireland secured AHB status earlier this year, but has not applied for funding. The Peter McVerry Trust has not applied for AHB status.
“At the risk of agreeing with the taoiseach, funding doesn’t seem to be the problem – there is plenty of money around,” said Barry O’Leary, chief executive of the HFA. “We have facilities to lend up to €500m – €300m for housebuilding, €200m for house purchases. We are open for business, we are very keen to lend, and we can lend European Investment Bank money fixed for 25 years at about 3.25%, which is an absolutely phenomenal offering.”
“…Pat Doyle, chief executive of the Peter McVerry Trust, said he was disappointed with Tuffy’s comments. He said the trust is in the process of meeting the HFA’s rigorous requirements for recognition, and is currently buying 55 homes in Dublin using a mixture of commercial finance and business donations.”
“Tuffy said increasing the rent supplement cap – as suggested by Focus and the McVerry Trust – would simply drive rents up further. ‘The issue is supply,’ she said. ‘Some AHBs are stepping up to the plate and borrowing from the Housing Finance Agency to fund social housing, but two major players have been slower than others – Focus Ireland and the McVerry Trust. They are criticising [the government] but they need to step up to the plate themselves. Look at what smaller organisations like Cluid, Tuath and the Oaklee Housing Trust have done.”
In response to the Sunday Times story, Focus Ireland wrote on its Facebook…
Meanwhile outside the Trust Homelessness Services on Bride Road, Dublin 8 this morning…
.@alankellylabour says #homeless problem is “unprecedented”, says more cooperation from local authorities needed pic.twitter.com/Jkr6HHVFRf
— Brian O’Donovan (@BrianODTV3) August 24, 2015
Charities not using homeless cash (The Sunday Times)
Pic: Rollingnews.ie
jasus
is this the level Lab stoop to now???
Well, do remember, their dear leader Joan thinks photo ops at the opening of soup kitchens is a good thing.
I heard her on the radio this morning with a fella from McVerry.
She pretty much went straight to the “I am a public servant, I am asking legitimate questions” defense, when challenged.
It was as if she has realised how wrong she was. I would have felt sorry for her, except for the fact that what she was saying was so indefensible. Charities should be applying for mortgages to build homeless shelters….. how very New Labour.
The govt stopped providing housing when the crash hit. It was alrerady well behind in meeting rewquired targets. Now, over five years later, the crises worse than ever and the govt is still a million miles from getting back up to speed…. and so they blame the charities for not doing enough.
F**K you Labour !
+1
Lack of response is firmly laid at the Governments feet. They were running the country through this whole housing crisis mess!
Leaving aside Tuffy’s rightness or wrongness, it’s amazing how Labour seem to have no notion of how lashing out at homeless charities (especially McVerry) looks. It’s a bad battlefield to choose even if they feel right is on their side.
+1
“Charities should be applying for mortgages to build homeless shelters….” nailed it
So where charities step in where Government fails, that Government then accuses them of not doing enough?
How right wing and utterly offensive is that.
Cork Simon community spend 7 million every year on a handful of homeless people. Yet the problem never goes away.
Because it can be a very complex problem
There was no homeless problem when the councils built homes. Not that complex, Dön Pîdgéònî.
The causes of homelessness are complex was what I meant. Social housing is only one part of the solution but you can’t put people into homes they don’t want to be in, which some don’t. Back in the day when social housing was being readily built there were probably strong social networks that stopped people dropping out and an availability of jobs for people who didn’t get qualifications at school in manufacturing etc etc which link back into community and mental health and happy people. There also probably wasn’t easily available class A drugs and social factors fueling addiction which make it difficult to “fix” the homeless problem. Building a few more houses won’t help those issues.
Well said.
Yeah, you’d think that would be enough spare change. ffs!
+1
She’s right to a point. These charities have annual budgets that could pay for a new home for every single homeless person.
Their jobs are dependent on there being a homeless problem so you can never fully believe their press releases.
At the same time groups like cluid are buying up housing stock which would otherwise be rented. Private renters are being hit by this.
Nice right wing troll there Jonotti. All your points are baseless though.
Jonotti’s position appears to be that the state should provide housing directly and not outsource the problem to ‘voluntary’ agencies to manage – that this is a more effective and more efficient solution – clearly Mr.T does not know his left from right
These the same annual budgets that were slashed…..
Yeah the bloody poor, they’ve caused all our problems.
You’re hilarious.
And I saw that bunch of suits being all awkward outside the Iveagh Trust earlier this morning. They haven’t a clue how to behave outside their comfort zone.
Alan Kelly in jeans, acting all casual is a patronizing Blairesque tactic which fools nobody. You’re a Minister, wear a suit when you’re working.
LOOK AT THEM! WEARING SUITS! THE WANKERS.
LOOK AT THEM! NOT WEARING SUITS! THE WANKERS.
HA!
Classic Mr. T.
I pity you fool
During the boom times, when homelessness was often a result of mental difficulties or drug addiction… the government closed allot of its facilities to concentrate on rehabilitation of the homeless… They were aware of the good will towards Focus Ireland & the McVerry Trust, and wanted to capitalist on that before Peter was unable to carry on his work… so his name would live on & bring good will along with it – call it marketing if you will… It was a successful program for the most part… Funds were diverted from government bodies into these charitable groups…
Now that the homeless crisis has changed, the above find themselves in a crisis of their own. Laden down by government bureaucracy they are unable to deal with the changing face of homelessness & their reputations are being effected by the fact that they have become somewhat ineffective themselves…
Whats seemed like a great idea a few years ago, now has the world clattering down around them.
It is sad to see, as there are/were many good people working in both organisations.
The last set of audited accounts are for 2012. So where are 2013, 2014?
http://www.pmvtrust.ie/about-us/governance/
Focus Ireland is more up to date:
http://www.focusireland.ie/reports/2014/annual-report/accounts.html
We need lots of housing types build to suit need which right now is squeezed. Social housing is the job of local government and €2 Billion has been allocated to that in the last budget.
You are right in that Fianna Fail dismantled the state’s role in housing provision and empowered organisations like the McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland to fill the void in providing for vulnerable people who could not provide for themselves in boom-time Ireland – what should also be acknowledged though is these organisations and other housing trusts and cooperatives lobbied to take on the role of social housing provision in the state at the time, and were eager to professionalise their operations. Now there is huge demand and these organisations find themselves without the necessary scale of operations and organisational capacity to address the problem and are pointing the finger back at the current government. This is quite galling for the Labour party who would have had strong reservations against the dismantling of the state’s role in housing provision during boom-time Ireland given the party’s history in building and developing this role for the state. It is even more annoying for Labour to be the constant butt of McVerry’s criticisms when he was Fianna Fail’s chief useful idiot with a social conscience during the boom when this disastrous paradigm change was being pushed through. A great many housing schemes in development fell by the wayside as a result of this downsizing of the state’s role including many units planned as part of Ballymun Regeneration which would have been built by now. Many of these sites were handed over to ‘voluntary’ agencies and cooperatives and the sites remain untouched and unused. If we had any proper journalists in this state, who actually researched and understood a topic, this dynamic would form part of the national conversation on the topic of housing, but we don’t so everyone just accepts what McVerry and Focus say as gospel because they are the good guys right? I mean they hardly have their own agenda?
Very interesting comments.
Don’t over play that downsizing and don’t over play the role of AHBs….
Breakdown of Housing Support in Ireland (Numbers of Units) – share of accommodation among the three types of social housing support:
Private Sector/Rent Supplement – 74,000
Local Authority – Leased / RAS – 25,000 (mostly, 24,800, Private Sector/Rent Allowance type through the RHLI/RAS scheme)
Local Authority ‘owned stock’ – 112,000
AHBs – 27,000
First thing I notice is the govt is using nearly 100,000 units through Private Sector / Rent Allowance which is extremely costly and a waste of funding. Note too that that figure has grown massively since the govt stopped building/providing increased stock of social housing.
3 Big Problems recognised in the last strategy doc of the govt:
1 – “Local authorities have not been able to add to their stock, significantly in the period to end of 2014, due to reductions in central Government funding, contributing to pressures in some areas, particularly large urban centres.”
2 – “AHBs have traditionally occupied a relatively small but strategically important role in providing specialised housing services. There has been limited uptake of new revenue based financing arrangements — CALF and P&A agreements — and the sector, as currently structured and funded, requires considerable capacity building to undertake large – scale investment and development”
3 – “In addition, housing options that are reliant on the private rental sector such as RAS, HAP and leasing are under pressure as some landlords seek higher rents. This issue is further exacerbated by the difficulty in identifying new supply. Rent Supplement households face similar
issues.”
p 28 – http://www.environ.ie/en/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,39622,en.pdf
So, the government is failing on two accounts that make up 90% of the housing provision, and is blaming the sector that has usually provided a small amount of housing….. the govt RECENTLY put more emphasis on AHBs to work in this area while cutting funding to them in other areas. If Tuffy thinks the charities are not doing enough, it’s because they don’t have the resources, and govt not providing ‘capacity’.
It’s in their own report…. ffs
+1
+1
one group in this argument believes housing is best provided for by voluntary bodies supported and part-funded by the state, the other believes the state should provide housing directly – the current model of housing provision favours the former and is failing to provide – this is a policy battle
I don’t see why this should be outsourced to charities, I really don’t.
The state was quite capable of building good quality housing in the 1930s.
A huge amount have been learned about best practice internationally since then.
Just bloody well get on with it.
Homelessness serves an important function in modern, capitalist society – it’s a visual warning to the proles not to get out of line. It’s even more important during a period of severe economic austerity when the proles might be a little more inclined to get uppity. Joan knows this…she told me.
…Joanna ‘friend of israel’ Tuffy is lecturing people about homelessness now…wtf
Either Tuffy is getting desperate for publicity or more likely hoping to garner FG second preference votes either way she has foot in mouth syndrome. Labour member need to waken up to what the leadership is doing to a party with a long proud history of serving working class people. However it’s probably to late to stop digging the hole now.
Apparently, Joan was concerned that there may still be some people out there who may actually vote for Labour in the next election.
And if they continue to support Labour, they can expect more of the same from Joan & Co. until they get the message that Labour are completely disconnected from their working class foundations and couldn’t care less about the deprived.
“Let them eat cake.”
The government have succeeded in making people think that it is normal for charities to provide social housing and to criticize them when they run into difficulty.
Welcome to the 51st state of the USA.
…Heads need to roll in this Government for their lack of action. They’ve no shame