Chai Brady
Chai Brady and Davis Clark
The Pontiff’s focus on a “global community” will help highlight the work of Ireland’s homeless charities during his visit, and change peoples’ perspective, according to Sr Stan Kennedy.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic the founder of Focus Ireland said there’s been “negative” political discourse about families “gaming the system”.
“Then there was others that said most of the people who are homeless are not from Ireland, and that kind of effects people and they think maybe we shouldn’t be doing anything about it,” Sr Stan said.
“He takes a completely different approach and he thinks in terms of global community and that will affect people’s approach and how they will respond to it.”
Focus Ireland supported 1,065 households out of homelessness and provided advice and information to some 5,000 more according to its 2017 Annual Report released last week.
But the problem remains formidable with Sr Stan, pointing out that over 250 families are still struggling with homelessness in Ireland.
“How can we stand by while families who are homeless are forced to live in one hotel room for months at a time?” she asked, highlighting the lack of suitable accommodation for many families.
From 2017-2018, family homelessness has risen by 31% across Ireland.
In addition to directly supporting homeless individuals and families, Focus Ireland has called on the Government to address the situation via three fronts.
The first is to increase the amount of housing built by Government-sponsored housing bodies. The second is to prevent buy-to-let landlords from evicting tenants simply so they can increase the prices. The third is to penalise those who have left vacant homes unavailable, which number in the thousands.