Two years into a three-year Government strategy to solve homelessness the number of people who do not have a home is increasing, says the Simon Community.
"Fundamental problems" are emerging in the Government's strategy, while voluntary organisations working with the homeless are not getting promised funds, the Simon Communities of Ireland says in its annual report due to be published later today.
It cites Cork as an example, where homelessness doubled between 2001 and 2002. Despite this, Simon's services there cannot get promised staff funding from the Southern Health Board, leaving them under "huge threat" next year. There are similar situations with its services throughout the State, says the charity.
The annual report criticises the way the Government's three-year programme is being delivered.
The programme, Homelessness, An Integrated Strategy was launched to great fanfare in May 2000, and set out a comprehensive national approach to solving the problem by next year.
It recommended the creation of local homeless action plans by each local authority through new homeless forums, where the local authority, health board and voluntary sector would be represented. However, says the report: "Many of the action plans were not finalised until well into 2002 and of those currently completed many areas are unspecific, falling far short of the recommendations in the original strategy".
Furthermore, it says, funding was to be provided on a three-yearly basis "to allow the services to be properly established and managed". However, the voluntary sector is "struggling to get three-year funding from either the local authorities or the health boards for both new and existing projects".
