Feeding Our Friends

at

CVNftSpXIAAFgaz

CVNftWYWsAAMcxJ

CVNftWYXIAAtifs

Non-profit organisation You’re Not Alone writes:

“[Last night] we looked after 189 of our homeless friends – everybody got loads of food and plenty of clothing to keep them going through the night.”

Meanwhile on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Mike Allen, director of advocacy at Focus Ireland, was asked if it’s known how many people are sleeping rough in Dublin, following the official rough sleeper count which was carried out on Monday.

Mr Allen said:

“Well the official count was done earlier in the week and, for reasons which are, always baffle everybody every time, they take a very long time to actually come out with the figure. In this case, I wouldn’t put too much, it’s not a conspiracy, because I believe the figure is going to be significantly lower. It’s bound to be lower because we just opened 100 new beds, emergency beds with the cold weather initiative and those beds were open by the time the rough sleeper count was done. And so there’s 100 people who will have emergency accommodation rather than be on the street which is good news. You’re probably talking about… Focus Ireland street team works with the Peter McVerry Trust every day, every night on the street – they would estimate that, before those beds opened, there were about 160 people sleeping rough. So it’s likely to be around 60. So that’s a significant drop in rough sleeping over the year.”

Listen back to interview in full here

Earlier: This Is Not A Crisis, It’s A National Emergency

Previously: ‘A Year On… The Situation Is Much, Much Worse’

You’re Not Alone

Sponsored Link

8 thoughts on “Feeding Our Friends

  1. KD

    You were feeding hungry people (fair play), not giving beds to homeless. Surely if some of the 100 people who have just got accomodation turned up, you still fed them? If so, your figure is for something different than his figure.
    Both still terribly sad figures

  2. ollie

    “How many people did you count sleeping rough on Monday?”
    “I don’t know”
    “Why don’t you guess?”
    “Ok, about 60”

    But there were 168 sleeping rough last November, (http://www.dublincity.ie/official-street-count-figures-rough-sleeping-winter-2014-across-dublin-region) and Alan Kelly personally provided an extra 260 beds (http://www.alankelly.ie/press/national/14181384782857413.html)
    In addition, there were another 100 beds provided last week.
    So, there are an additional 192 homeless people in emergency accommodation since November 2014 (and that’s real homeless, not including those in hotel rooms) yet Mike Allen sells this as a good news story.

  3. Anomanomanom

    The real problem, Yes I have experience with this, is we have genuine homeless and I want a council house homeless. Before the keyboard warriors start I will explain. Real homeless are the street sleepers the same people you see everyday, homelessness is rarely their first or most serious problem. Then you have the “I’m on the waiting list and sleeping on my friends couch” homeless. While being years on the list must be awful it’s not real homelessness. The best example I can give is of the couple with 4 kids aged between 9 and 14 months moaning how their waiting years for a home. They can’t afford rent are homeless. They left out the part about while “homeless” she became pregnant again and had two of their younger kids while living in a 2 bed with kids already. Their not homeless their scroungers.

    1. Happy Molloy

      yeah I agree with this. Wen you read that 70 families being made homeless every x number of weeks, I do wonder what they mean by ‘homeless’. Is it the sane homeless that I am, in that I don’t have a house/council house in my name or do they actually have no where to go.

      1. Anomanomanom

        Another example that really grates me is the hampers at Christmas. I’m not naming the places so Il just say four organisations around me that give out hampers to less fortunate at Xmas. Every year the same people run from organisations to get as much as they can, this shouldn’t happen but people are desperate. Oh that’s not the bad part it’s the people from the area in the queue for a hamper that are “poor” and need help, the same people I see going to work and in the pub every weekend. Yet they are Poor.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie