Homeless housing delivered with water charge refund donations

A leading homeless charity has opened its newest social housing development partly funded by people donating their Irish Water refunds to charity.

The social housing opened yesterday (February 28) in Ravenswood, Fingal, Co. Dublin.

The scheme is the charity’s first green-field development and consists of eight one-bedroom homes with a small community building.

It’s designed to provide housing to single people with the most complex needs.

Primarily funded through the Government scheme Rebuilding Ireland, it was supported by the 2018 Refund Project.

This encouraged people to donate their refunds from Irish water to three of Ireland’s homeless charities. These include the Peter McVerry Trust, Focus Ireland and the Simon Community.

Landmark achievement

Pat Doyle CEO of Peter McVerry Trust said: “This is Peter McVerry Trust’s first new-build social housing scheme and is a landmark achievement for us.

“I’d like to thank our project partners in Fingal County Council and the Department of Housing for enabling us to deliver this scheme,” he said.

Mr Doyle also thanked the public for helping to increase the number of units they could deliver through the Refund Project.

He added: “This scheme consists of eight really high-quality units and a community building which were delivered at a cost of around €1.6 million.

“The new tenants will have access to both visiting and on-site supports from Peter McVerry Trust staff.”

The community building will provide residents with a central location where they can socialise.

“It is always an absolute privilege to be in a position to hand over keys to a new home to someone who has experienced homelessness.

“It is something that we want to do as much as we can, and we are really ramping up our housing output under Rebuilding Ireland and we will hopefully have many more days like today in the coming months and years.”