This Monday night, RTÉ Investigates follows the lives of rough sleepers and homeless hostel users, examining the challenges they face and the difficulties in getting off the streets in a powerful new RTÉ One TV documentary.
There were 56 homeless deaths in the first 11 months of 2020.Inthe lead up to Christmas, RTÉ Investigates documented the lives of people sleeping rough in our capital city. The programme also examines the role of emergency hostels as a response to the problem – revealing how some can’t get into the hostels while others believe the streets are safer.
The number of rough sleepers in Dublin fluctuates. The most recent count by Simon found 139 people sleeping rough in the city over one week in November. Those that are sleeping rough are supposed to be able to get an emergency hostel bed by ringing a freephone number operated by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, or the DRHE – these beds are for those in crisis. Rough sleepers from outside Co. Dublin being denied access to an emergency hostel bed in the city has caused some controversy.
On 7 December last, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien told the nation on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland that nobody is being denied a hostel bed. Days later RTÉ Investigates filmed with homeless people who tried ringing the DRHE looking for a bed for that night to be told they couldn’t help them. That they would need to contact their former local authority despite being on the streets in Dublin, on a winter’s nights during the pandemic.
There were 75 beds empty the night one of the homeless men called the freephone number, but he was told he could not access a bed.
In the programme, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien offers his apologies and says this should not have happened. The DRHE said they look at everybody on a case by case basis and use their maximum discretion. They also pointed out they “are not responsible for providing homeless accommodation for everybody in the country”
Hostels remain a key and a costly component of the State’s response to homelessness. In 2016, the DRHE spent almost €10million on private emergency hostels. By 2019 this spend had shot up to almost €22 million.
At any one time there are roughly 3,000 homeless people availing of emergency hostel beds in Dublin – some are well run and safe but there are concerns about others. Inspections of hostels are being carried out since February 2019. These are done by the local authority and not by an independent third party. RTÉ Investigates tried to access the records through Freedom of Information but were refused.
In an interview with RTÉ Investigates for the programme, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said: “Where they can be made public, they should be. I haven’t, and I don’t have any difficulty with that. I think we need to make sure that we, that our standards are the best they possibly can be.”
RTÉ Investigates undertook a detailed survey on the streets of thecapital, in association with Amarach Research, to try to understand the challenges faced by peoplewho don’t have a secure home. They spoke in confidence with 80 people who either sleep rough or use emergency hostels. Some had been living this way for months, some for years.
- 48% of those surveyed were not addicted to drugs before becoming homeless. However, after becoming homeless, 50% of those people became addicted to hard drugs despite never previously having a drug problem.
- Among the younger age groups the rate of addiction is even higher. For 18 to 34-year olds, 71% turned to drugs, despite no previous history of drug addiction. Heroin and alcohol were the most common drugs followed by cannabis, prescription drugs, crack cocaine and cocaine.
- Of those who did not have mental health issues prior to being homeless, 58% went on to develop mental health issues while on the streets
“It’s shocking, very often we look at people who are homeless and we see the drug addiction they have and we think that that’s the cause of their homelessness but in actual fact many of the problems that people who are homeless have are consequences of their homelessness and just the sheer misery and the sheer mental pressure of living in circumstances where you have no home and the security that should go with a home” says Mike Allen of Focus Ireland.
Monday night’s RTÉ Investigates documentary follows the moving stories of several rough sleepers on Dublin’s streets over the past three months.