The Peter McVerry Trust, to which yesterday the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Body (AHBRB) announced that it had appointed inspectors, appears to have removed its published accounts for 2022 from its website. Nor are the accounts to be found on the Charities Regulator webpage.
The housing regulator has ordered a statutory investigation of the well-known homeless charity over finance concerns.
The accounts to the end of December 2022 were previously published and showed a surplus for the year of just under €4.5 million which was significantly up on the €1.86 million for 2021. Total income was also substantially up, by more than €8 million from 2021 to €61.74 million in 2022.
In 2021, the McVerry Trust employed a total of 504 people, including 492 who were full time employees. Of their total income of more than €53 million in 2021, total staff and administrative costs came to more than €50.5 million.
The bulk of the McVerry Trust income comes from the state, 72% in 2022, and as part of that the McVerry Trust drew down €821,890 from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for the “provision of accommodation and services,” alongside a once off payment for “works” at the Augusta Lodge.
The guest house in Westport was acquired by the Housing Agency last year and is run under the care of the McVerry Trust.
The decision was criticised by a local Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn who claimed that “the loss of the guest house will impact upon the local economy by at least €1 million over the year.” The Trust is using the Lodge to accommodate 30 Ukrainian refugees.
The McVerry Trust is just one of a number of large NGOs who are involved in the homelessness sector. For the period of their last accounts, McVerry, Simon, Focus, Threshold, De Paul Ireland, Merchants Quay and Novas had a combined income of €273 million. Of that, €122 million came directly from the state. They employed 3,168 people on a full or part time basis.
Simon had a similar income to the McVerry Trust in 2021 at just over €53 million and over half of that came from the state. Simon employed more than 900 people. Given that at the end of July there were just over 9,000 adults who were reported to be officially homeless, the ratio of people employed in addressing the problem, and the large amount of money that goes to the NGOs involved in the sector suggest a certain level of inefficiency.
While the response of some to the reports regarding the situation in which the McVerry Trust possibly finds itself might be an indication that it and other NGOs require even more state funding, that is very much up for debate.
The McVerry Trust has not yet responded to a query from Gript regarding the apparent removal of their financial report for 2022 prior to publication of this article.