“They Will Seek A High Court Injunction To Stop It”

at

Avalon House, Aungier Street, Dublin 2

Olivia Kelly, in The Irish Times, reports:

Businesses on Aungier Street, Dublin, are to take legal action to stop the opening of the State’s largest homeless hostel for rough sleepers at Avalon House.

The Peter McVerry Trust and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive intend to take over the backpackers’ hostel, above a branch of Starbucks cafe, and use it to provide emergency accommodation for 155 homeless adults.

A lease on the building has been signed by the trust, and the facility is due to open in January. However, local businesses say they will seek a High Court injunction to stop it going ahead.

Dublin businesses seek to stop 155-bed homeless hostel (Olivia Kelly, The Irish Times)

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42 thoughts on ““They Will Seek A High Court Injunction To Stop It”

        1. Amy.

          I don’t mind the fire incident. But Mannix used to be pretty left. Now he’s just a spokesman for IBEC.

    1. postmanpat

      They are concerned about an increase of begging happening right outside theirs shop during the day. Now if Peter McVerry can mediate between the business owners and the homeless face to face to ensure this wont happen then it can be all sorted in one afternoon, IE: ” listen lads , take the begging a few streets over because these store owners don’t want it effecting business” simple. Have the trust run the hostel on a constant 6 month review basis , breaches of agreement and the trust has to move out. It could all work out fine. Bit of a grey solation to a internet polarised world view, Weird . ill climb back on my flying saucer now…..

      1. baz

        why the need to beg?
        roof and food for free
        full welfare entitlements

        what are these rough sleepers doing with all their cash?

        1. postmanpat

          Answering a question you are not actually asking obviously , some (but not all )hostel users will need extra money for their chronic heroin addiction. But if they take the daytime street begging a few streets over then local business shouldn’t have a problem. The non Heroin users could simply be saving the welfare and begging so they don’t have to eat into the welfare on criminally overpriced smokes. at 14 quid a box which is more expensive than H, Just one example . Look, I know some people are hopeless no matter how much they get but there has to be stories of homeless who got back on there feet through these schemes. Generally? what is the success rate? I hope its high. My bet is 10 percent are hopeless cases no matter what but the rest deserve a shot at a comeback? no?

        2. Ron

          Whilst your comment i presume is nothing more then an attempt to troll online, do take a couple minutes to maybe educate yourself on the reality. Your comment bears zero resemblance to what is actually happening on the ground.

          Father Mc Verry himself sums it up nicely below.

          I know many homeless people who have been, and continue to be, denied welfare payments for weeks, even months, on end. Homeless people are routinely told that welfare payments can only be paid if they have an address, and to provide proof of their address, they must furnish receipts for several nights’ hostel accommodation. They are also expected to pay for their several nights’ hostel accommodation, even though they have not yet received any welfare payments!

          Dublin City Council will no doubt reply that homeless people are not refused accommodation if they have no money. Again this is straight from the manual, but in practice, a homeless person who contacts the homeless helpline at 2pm (when beds are available) will be asked if they have money to pay for their night in the hostel and if they say “No”, they will be told to ring back at 10.30pm, at which time all the beds will have been filled.

          Many homeless people, when they seek accommodation, are offered sleeping bags to sleep rough because there are not sufficient beds available. They, therefore, have no receipts and will not be paid. Others choose to sleep rough because much of the emergency accommodation available is full of drugs, their belongings are robbed, their dignity is destroyed. They feel safer sleeping on the streets. They, too, have no receipts and will not be paid.

          There is a growing crisis of homelessness which is being ignored. More people will be unable to access a bed when the “cold weather” beds, which were provided several weeks ago, are closed down at the end of March. It is difficult enough being homeless without being penniless as well. To survive, they have no choice but to beg, borrow or steal.

          1. diddy

            poo off back to the journal you pious fool. mc verry is right to be cross examined. he’s a total polyanna.

        3. diddy

          exactly. full Dole plus a cheap bed and board. our vast working poor underclass from South America would give there right arm for such conditions

    1. Cú Chulainn

      It is a disaster. Why take prime real estate and turn it into a hostel. Could it be that the priest McVery makes his living and promotes his church by having homeless people on display ?

      1. baz

        that is a great observation, probably your best here.
        never forget, he named the ‘trust’ after himself ! the sheer vanity

  1. Dr.Fart

    people (rightfully) sneered when niall harbison suggested we make ghettos outside the city and put all our homeless out there. but it seems that’s a solution people would genuinely be happy with. everyone agrees theres a serious homelessness issue, and they pose to have empathy for them, once it’s not near them. we’re a horrible bunch, the irish. absolute me feinners.

  2. Przemek

    Why is premium location used for this sort of purpose?

    Turn those into nice 2 bed apartments, and I’ll gladly trade my 3-bed semi-d for it.

    1. george

      155 people cannot be housed in a 3 bedroom house.

      I presume the Peter McVerry Trust know what they’re doing and have sourced an equipped premises in a location where the demand exists.

      1. Przemek

        Trade apartments for houses and you can house more, permanently, more spread out around the county. Many people, hard working people, would give everything to live in such great location.

        1. Janet, I ate my avatar

          not everyone ends up homeless because they are not “hardworking”
          many people are only a few missed pay checks away

          1. Hank

            I read somewhere recently that a scarily high number of working people said they are hypothetically only one paycheck away from homelessness. Very hard to save when over half your salary goes on paying someone else’s mortgage

          2. Janet, I ate my avatar

            there’s some horrible notion that people somehow deserve what they get, the judging without background or facts that it’s all some act to scam everyone,
            sickens me tbh,

  3. Fluffybiscuits

    How callous do people have to be? Meself, Im living beside a wet hostel thr last 8 years. Bar the odd drunk eejit shouting tis no trouble at all. Would appear they are more worried about property prices I reckon…Heartless yak hunts

  4. Peter

    The centralisation of drug addiction services, the unemployment black spots, the crime black spots, the mental health services, the homeless hostels etc in Dublin 1, 7 and 8 has been reported on extensively.
    Is it because leafy Ranelagh has “a voice” but inner city residents do not.
    Now the corporation want to create a super hub for their lorries and waste collection vehicles in, yes Dublin 8.

  5. Peter

    The centralisation of drug addiction services, the unemployment black spots, the mental health services, the homeless hostels etc in Dublin 1, 7 and 8 has been reported on extensively.
    Is it because leafy Ranelagh has “a voice” but inner city residents do not.
    Now the corporation want to create a super hub for their lorries and waste collection vehicles in, yes Dublin 8.

      1. Conksi

        Difficult not to imagine the negative impact if its a wet hostel, if its a more stable halfway house or whatever the word is then it’d be near zero change. But I suppose the problem is that there’s no information.
        You’d have to appreciate any small business trying to protect its interests, especially if there’s a void in information

  6. Joe

    local businesses that support something being done to assist homelessness until it lands in their doorstep

  7. Hello11

    I used to stay at Avalon when I was a student in Dublin. It was well run with no troublemakers. However I think the living area is too small to host 155 people who will have nothing to do all day. The kitchen could hold 50 people maximum. There is a common room in the basement but I say 30 is the most that can be there at one time. What are the others going to do? It’s a receipe for aggravation and aggression and that’s without all the problems homeless people have.

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