Category: Press Releases

“We cannot expect the private sector, which is solely concerned with making profits, to protect peoples’ rights to basic services.”

“creeping privatisation of homeless services, by shifting the burden to the voluntary sector, has helped to silence once authentic voices”

Calling on the Voluntary Sector to unite to resist PPPs and privatisation in the health, social and homeless services ALICE LEAHY, Director & Co-Founder of TRUST, the social and health service for people who are homeless, said today (WED. 28 May, 2008) that the recent collapse of PPPs in Dublin represented a shattering blow to the families involved waiting for social housing and the redevelopment of their areas.

The Voluntary Sector must become much more forceful, ALICE LEAHY said as advocates in defending those in society who have no voice instead of becoming involved in providing services that should be provided by the State. It is inevitable, she maintained that “the voluntary sector risks becoming complicit, in letting the State avoid having to provide decent quality public services, unless we speak with one voice in demanding justice for the most deprived”.

“PPPs and the privatisation of services are not about caring for people, they represent opportunities for the private sector to maximise profits in areas where the State should be in the driving seat protecting peoples’ rights. If we are serious about caring for people as people, everyone in the voluntary sector must reject the encroachment of privatisation in all its form in the health and social services, and in the provision of accommodation for people who are homeless,” she said.

ALICE LEAHY went on:

“We have argued against this trend because we have seen the serious consequences for the people we work with. Many well meaning people in the voluntary sector let the government off the hook, when they accept apparently large amounts of money to take over the role of the State in providing services. This represents a form of privatisation that has enabled services to be provided on the cheap, with the shortfall in service quality falling on the most vulnerable.”

Alice Leahy maintained that goodwill and generosity has been exploited. “Worse still, creeping privatisation of homeless services by shifting the burden to the voluntary sector has helped to silence once authentic voices, because to maintain services and keep the money coming in they are forced to keep quiet,” she said.

Advocating human rights based approaches in the provision of services ALICE LEAHY said “they constantly remind us we are not providing charity, or advocating charitable giving, but demanding that we live up to the principles of justice and fair play outlined in our constitution which we all are supposed to subscribe to.”

ALICE LEAHY, Director & Co-Founder of TRUST, announced today (Monday, 31 March, 2008) that detailed plans had been presented to Dublin City Council for the provision of public shower facilities in Dublin. Describing the plans as highly innovative and offering several options for consideration, Alice Leahy said that TRUST commissioned Architect Niall ó h-Éalaithe, Open Office Architects, to prepare detailed plans after the tremendous response received following the presentation of the original idea to Lord Mayor Vincent Jackson over eighteen months ago.

“We are very confident, given the highly positive reaction we have received to our detailed proposals that this initiative will be formally taken up by Dublin City Council which is currently considering them at this time. In the meantime, we are continuing to seek support for the idea because we are acutely aware what a tremendous difference the provision of public showers would make for people in Dublin, both citizens and visitors, as well as the people we work with,” ALICE LEAHY said.

The original proposal submitted by TRUST to Lord Mayor Vincent Jackson may be found here.

One of the most striking developments in recent years has been the disappearance of so many once prophetic voices defending the most marginalised in our community Alice Leahy, Director and Co-Founder of TRUST said today (Saturday, March 1, 2008 at the 22nd Pobal Dé Conference), because more and more organisations, often for the best of motives, have become directly involved in providing state funded services.

Describing this process as “privatisation through co-option,” Alice Leahy said that this has compromised the ability of bodies that formerly were to the fore in speaking out as advocates on the behalf of the voiceless and in helping them to secure their rights. More seriously, in the context of homelessness, is the fact that to secure grant support agencies are compelled to only deal with potentially “successful” candidates who can fit in and the more “difficult” are further marginalised. This is a very important issue Alice Leahy maintained because the reason many became homeless in the first place is because they cannot fit in.

Calling on Churches and Church people to become involved and not to be afraid to speak out Alice Leahy said that the message of the Gospel is an inclusive one and surely silence in the face of people being excluded cannot be an option.

Alice Leahy went on:

“In former times, when Ireland was a very poor country, the Churches provided services in almost all areas. Today, people are entitled to health, education and social services as a right. In many areas the Churches, and the Catholic Church in particular is withdrawing. However, it is ironic that many of the lay groups that were to the fore in demanding that the state provide services for the most vulnerable have themselves become involved in providing services using state funds. Clearly this is a win win proposition for the government as they get services on the cheap, often paying workers much less and enjoy the added bonus of silencing or toning down a once prophetic voice in defence of the voiceless.”

Stressing that many groups who become co-opted in providing services do so for best of motives, Alice Leahy maintained that we must never forget that people, especially people who are homeless, are entitled to services as of right and allowing the state to privatise services by co-option undermined the rights of the most vulnerable.

Calling on the Churches to assert the importance of human rights based approaches in all areas of service provision may seem ironic, Alice Leahy said, but with so many organisations no longer able to campaign in the way they once did it is imperative that their voices are heard. “Art 1 of the Declaration of Human Rights calls on all of us to work together to protect and assert the rights of the individual to dignity and respect. This message is consistent, indeed at the core of the teachings of all churches. The fact remains services for the poor will continue to be provided by NGOs of various kinds as well as Churches in addition to the state, and in situations where the state is also providing the resources for the non-state service providers. However, if we highlight human rights based approaches it helps to protect those in need of help as well as reminding all of us they are entitled to that assistance as of right and not as recipients of charity.”

Alice Leahy said that we do not live in a perfect world. The state is happy to avoid responsibility where it can to save us money as tax payers. However, the problem remains that when anything is provided on the cheap those at the receiving end loose out: “We must speak out and defend the rights of the most vulnerable. The Churches in recent year have lost their voices to some extent. However, while we are a non-denominational group, we would call on everyone to join in this effort to ensure that people get help as of right, and are treated with dignity and respect at all times.”

Alice Leahy, Director & Co-Founder, TRUST accepting the John Shelley Bursary 2007

The services for people who are homeless cannot be run like a business because of the complex nature of homelessness, and the failure to recognise that means the problem is getting bigger and more persistent, and the services are at risk of being transformed into “a homelessness industry”, ALICE LEAHY, Director and Co-Founder of TRUST, said today (Thursday, 06 December 2007) accepting John Shelley Bursary 2007 from the Environmental Health Officers Association.

“Services for people who are homeless are at risk of becoming a self perpetuating “homelessness industry” because the application of corporate style management techniques with an emphasis on benchmarks and performance indicators which place the emphasis on “moving people on”. In other words, each service, in both the public and voluntary sector, is perceived to be doing well if it passes a “client” to another service, regardless of whether that person has received any real help. However, the problem with this system is that people who are “difficult” get little or no help because they cannot fit in and often do not even make the official statistics. We know this because these people find themselves outsiders in our society and they come to our door everyday. Under this system there appears to be no real acknowledgement as to why people become homeless, and the very people the services should be helping are actually being further marginalised,” ALICE LEAHY said.

ALICE LEAHY went on:
“There is only one way the current trend will be reversed. We must ensure that all of the services adopt a culture or philosophy of caring that puts the person, the services are meant to serve, first and not the system. Indeed, in a business context everyone would agree you must put the customer first but this is not happening in the area of homelessness. Indeed, the person who becomes homeless, though called a client, must comply with the demands of the system and if unable to do so will find life very difficult. Evidence of that was provided recently when we had to make a complaint to the Data Commissioner about people who are homeless being apparently forced to answer a detailed and highly intimate forty page questionnaire before they received help. Obviously anyone with serious mental or psychological problems being put through that by an inexperienced person could suffer serious health consequences, of which no account appears to have been taken, let alone any consideration being given to the violation of the basic rights of the people subjected to that process.”

Alice Leahy in describing homelessness as a complex problem said that it required a commitment from all of the services to resolve, especially in terms of the way in which they treated people. Underlining that the reason many become homeless on the street is because they cannot fit in, she said that a sensitive and caring approach when a vulnerable person turned up at any service provider in the health, social or homeless area could actually prevent someone literally falling out of society.

“The key issue of course is time. You need to give time to people, especially people who are already marginalised because through out their lives they probably never enjoyed any caring relationship. However, the way the services are organised today, governed and operated according to budgets and quantitative measures, giving time to people can look like wasting time, and personal problems that lead to human tragedies go unanswered. This is what we mean when we say you cannot “manage” the so called “homeless problem” like a business because vulnerable and marginalised people are not machines. In other words, those who take time are deemed to be wasting time and the state goes on wasting money as people are constantly referred from one service to another never getting real help, often because they are deemed to be too “difficult”!” ALICE LEAHY said.

(Describing the situation as serious, ALICE LEAHY said TRUST felt compelled to have a book published to draw attention to this problem. Called “Wasting Time with People?” it will be launched in April 2008 and will be published by Gill & Macmillan.)

A culture of caring also implies listening to people in the frontline, as you cannot help people without organising services to meet their needs, ALICE LEAHY said. Indeed, the failure to respond appropriately to the growing numbers of people from the EU Accession States finding themselves homeless on our streets is because this does not happen.

“We owe it to the people from other countries who end up homeless on our streets to help them as their experience is very similar to that of our own people in former times who got into difficulties in other countries. Indeed, given the huge contribution workers from abroad are making to our economy, we also have a duty of care to respond to them as well. However, the failure of the Homeless Agency to acknowledge this growing problem is a good example of the unresponsiveness of the current system. This also explains why some of us have no confidence in current figures for the numbers sleeping rough on our streets as they simply are too narrowly defining the problem. A phrase such as “between the two canals” to describe the parameters of the recent survey sounds like something out of the 19th Century and completely fails to take account of the mobility or lifestyles of people who are homeless,” she said.