Tag Archives: Homeless
Last night.
Chancery Street, Dublin 7.
Sarah Bowie writes:
More time in our virtual worlds than outside? Not true for everyone.
Previously: Meanwhile, Round The Back Of The Four Courts
Derelicte
at
The singular style of “Slavik-a”, a homeless man in the city of Lviv, Ukraine, extensively chronicled by photographer Yurko Dyachyshyn.
Oh, go on then.
MORE (100 pix): Slavik’s Fashion (Yurko Dyachyshyn)
From top: Acting Environment Minister Alan Kelly and from his speech at the Custom House this morning
This morning.
At a homeless and housing forum in Custom House in Dublin this morning.
Acting Environment Minister Alan Kelly tells those present that his efforts to find a solution to the housing problem were blocked by Article 43 the Constitution. to wit:
Article 43:
The State acknowledges that man, in virtue of his rational being, has the natural right, antecedent to positive law, to the private ownership of external goods.
The State accordingly guarantees to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to transfer, bequeath, and inherit property.
The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.
Hmm.
More as we get it.
Meanwhile,
last night, outside the GPO on O’Connell Street.
Darragh Doyle tweetz:
Dublin tonight. 2 queues outside the GPO. One for a play. The other for food and help for the homeless.
‘Get back over to the North Side’ guard tells guy he assumes is homeless just now. So segregation is official police policy? #guards
— Siobhán O’ Donoghue (@siobhwithafada) March 30, 2016
Top pics: Elaine Loughlin and Mark Coughlan
Last night.
GPO, O’Connell Street, Dublin
Inner City Helping Homeless writes:
Last night Dublin’s GPO was manned by four members of An Garda Siochana. The purpose, to stop Homeless individuals from bedding down outside. On arrival tonight Inner City Helping Homeless Outreach teams met “John” who normally beds down in front of the GPO for shelter and some form of safety to be informed “No Homeless Here”.
He said: “It’s all because of the week that is in it, nobody wants tourists seeing Homeless outside the GPO, Where else am I supposed to go they won’t give me a bed. I’ve slept here every night for months…”
ICHH Director Anthony Flynn who was at the GPO with the Outreach Team, added;
“This is an unbelievable situation, we come across regular clients here nightly who wait for our teams to come for some support. To see resources such as four Gardaí to man a building so government can save face is shocking. Open beds and accommodate these people need.
Instead, they are being pushed from the area to put on a front for the tourism industry. We have a chronic rough sleeper problem in central Dublin and the answer is not to move the problem on, but to actually address the issue head on. Central government cannot keep trying to disguise the issue“.
This morning.
The Barricade Inn squat, Parnell Street, Dublin 1.
Awaiting eviction this week.
The open letter reads:
This building was laying vacant and abandoned in the heart of our capital city for over a decade, left to wreck and ruin. About a year ago, a group of squatters entered and spent months renovating the premises and restoring life to the building. They proceeded to open the premises to the public for meetings, workshops, gigs, etc. They ran a café, a library and a computer room and provided a space open to the public, free to use.
Elsewhere, Dublin is filled with glittery shops and profit machinery breathing in and out profit-seeking machine people. Spaces like The Barricade Inn offered an alternative. The group that opened this space also had the audacity to challenge Ireland’s housing crisis head-on by placing their own bodies in the politico-legal grey zone of private property rights versus common sense.
Following in the tradition of political action taken by groups such as the Dublin Housing Action Committee (DHAC) – an organization which emerged during the 1960’s to tackle similar problems of unaffordable housing and perceived injustices as a large number of properties then too stood empty in the capital in the midst of a housing crisis – activists at the Barricade Inn took up residency in the newly opened building. The same struggle continues to this day. I quote an excerpt from the DHAC, Bulletin No 1, 19691;
“Laws that allow and encourage landlords to knock down sound houses or leave them idle during a housing emergency are immoral, and the courts and judges that uphold them are in contempt of justice.
“Throughout the city of Dublin there are hundreds of flats and houses lying idle (vacant possession being more important and profitable than housing families) while 10,000 families are homeless. For this reason we call on all homeless families to join the DHAC and to occupy all vacant private accommodation...
“The high increase of property value in Dublin is being exploited to the full by the landlords and speculators. These landlords feed off the desperate need of Dublin’s homeless for accommodation…”
What is needed is a change. We need not simply crush the rentier class, as a gardener crushes the common garden snail between forefinger and thumb in the creation of a perfect garden… as appealing and all as that fantasy may sound – to destroy the parasite that feeds upon the masses – the problem we face runs deeper than that. What is required is a more fundamental, more radical reorganisation of our society and its politico-economic constellation. But there is little point in evoking the word “Revolution” without concrete and reasonable objectives to stand upon.
Perhaps affordable housing or innovative cultural space within our city is such a reasonable objective… I mean, what else is going to be done with buildings such as this?
Thanks Tomas Lynch
This morning, around 11.
Gandon House, Amiens Street, Dublin 1
Colm Keegan tweetz:
See this? Poster says ‘The Homeless are not just for Christmas’
Previously: Invest in Spikes & Fending For Himself
G’wan Greg
at
Oh.
Meanwhile…
You’re Not Alone writes:
“We would just like to say a big thank you to a kind gent named Greg who just donated all these phones to us to hand out to the homeless – it’s brilliant.”
By Darren Lynch (25/01/16)
The Capuchin Day centre
Stuck for a roof this Xmas?
Lisa Kelleher, at Dublin City Council, writes:
Throughout the Christmas period, the work of the four Dublin local authorities and state-funded services will continue to provide emergency accommodation and support services for over 3,500 adults and children , every night, right across the Dublin region. This is a 71% increase in adults and children using our services, since November 2014.
If you are at risk of sleeping rough:
Contact the Housing First Service on 086 813 9015 from 7am until 11am This service is the official on-street response team to assist you if you are at risk of rough sleeping. Please contact the service immediately and be aware that if you are outside the city centre area, transport will be available to bring you to accommodation if you need it.
We would also like to appeal to members of the public to contact the service on www.homelessdublin.ie if they meet a person who is rough sleeping. The website provides a quick link to be completed, that will immediately alert the Housing First Service to the location of the person who might be sleeping rough.
If you are in need of emergency accommodation:
If your tenancy has ended and you are in need of emergency accommodation over the Christmas period from December 25th 2015 until January 3rd 2016 please contact Dublin City Council’s Homeless FREEPHONE on 1800 707 707. This service will be available everyday from 10am until 2am.
If you are in a family and accomodated in a commercial hotel:
The four Dublin local authorities have been contingency planning since October 2015 to ensure that the placements for households that are currently accommodated in commercial hotels can be extended through the Christmas period into early January 2016, whilst daily local authority placement offices are not open.Where hotels are closing for the Christmas period, alternative placements have been put in place.This information has been communicated to all relevant families, however we would appeal again to families to contact 1800 707 707 if they are concerned about their placement.
If you are renting and worried about losing your home:
If you are worried about your lease ending before Christmas or early in the new year, the Dublin local authorities would urge you to contact their dedicated Tenancy Protection Service, provided by Threshold on 1800 454 454 as soon as you feel your tenancy is at risk.
Annual Christmas Day dinner
The Knights of Columbanus continue to host the annual Christmas Day Dinner in the RDS, Ballsbridge, Anglesea Road Entrance. A free bus service is provide to and from the RDS every 20 minutes from 9.30am from three pick up points; Mansion House -Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Four Courts – Inns Quay, Dublin 1 and Clery’s Clock – O’ Connell Street, Dublin 1
Day services
There are a range of day services that are available and open throughout the Christmas period including;Capuchin Day Centre – 29 Bow Street, Dublin 7; Merchants Quay Day Service and Night Café – Riverbank, 4 Merchants Quay, Dublin 8 and Focus Ireland Coffee Shop – 15 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2