Cork Simon moved its highest number of people out of homelessness last year despite the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, chief executive Dermot Kavanagh said.
Mr Kavanagh said Cork Simon moved 69 people from homelessness to secure and affordable, supported and independent, housing last year, while it supported 1,027 men and women across all its services in 2021.
He said eight of 69 moves out of homelessness last year were made possible with the completion of renovation work at St Joachim and Anne’s on Anglesea Street, where the 19th-century building was converted into eight independent-living flats.
“These eight homes represent hope and new beginnings. They provide the safe and secure base that is vital for people to begin addressing the traumas and stresses they have experienced and to start rebuilding their lives,” he said.
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Mr Kavanagh said the record numbers of people moving out of homeless were achieved despite the charity having to work through the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic, and he paid tribute to Cork Simon staff as well as the hundreds of volunteers and donors who had assisted the charity.
“The last two years, in light of Covid, were probably the most difficult years in the history of Cork Simon. However, against the odds, through partnership and co-operation, last year we managed to keep people safe, to move more and more people out of homelessness, to reduce the numbers of people long-term homeless and sleeping rough.”
Mr Kavanagh was speaking in advance of the publication of Cork Simon’s Annual Impact Report for 2021, which revealed that Cork Simon’s Housing and Support Team supported some 234 formerly homeless people to maintain their tenancies.
The report also detailed that Cork Simon’s Emergency Shelter and Nightlight supported 416 people throughout 2021, an average of 39 people per night, although the number of long-term homeless people staying at the Cork Simon Emergency Shelter fell by 35 per cent to 37 people in 2021.
Mr Kavanagh said that another positive development was that the nightly number of people recorded by Cork Simon’s Outreach Team as sleeping rough in the city reduced by 45 per cent to an average of six people per night in 2021.
Cork Simon also reported that some 73 people were supported into addiction treatment and aftercare, and 42 people were supported into employment in 2021 while the charity spent 88 cents of every euro raised directly on activities and services.
Anthony O’Donovan, chairman of Cork Simon’s voluntary board of directors, pointed out that as Cork Simon marked its 50th anniversary last year, the charity successfully obtained planning permission for a 72-unit apartment complex on Railway Street in the city’s North Docklands.
The report will be launched today by Cork Simon resident of five years Tammy Twomey who reflected on her time living at one of Cork Simon’s high-support houses.
“This is home; this is safety, security. I wonder to myself, if I hadn’t moved here, where would I be? I’d still be on the streets. I never thought I’d have a home. I never thought I deserved a home. I never thought I deserved education, friends. Back then, I didn’t believe in myself. Coming here, it took me a year to settle, realising I’m not on my own.”
Ms Twomey said that thanks to Cork Simon — and all who support the charity through volunteering and making individual and business donations — she had been able to turn her life around and it had reignited her hope for the future.
