It’s no secret that the scarcity of housing in Ireland doesn’t really align with our status as a wealthy country.
Putting a roof over your head is the first step to being able to do pretty much anything else successfully. A recent slogan used by a homeless support group said something along the lines of, ‘Without a home you’re lost’.
They were correct.
Last night on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show the business of homelessness – as it refers to the vast organism that is homeless charities in this country- was discussed with questions being raised about how money granted to these charities and NGOs is spent.
Speaking on the program former chair of the Housing Agency Conor Skehan said that the “numbers are frightening” in reference to the amount of money spent on administration costs at many homeless advocacy groups and how much “duplication” there is in organisations “doing the same thing” in regards to the issue.
"How many people are doing the same thing, how many charities exist for exactly the same purpose"#ConorSkehan on the duplication of NGOs and charities.#TonightVMTV pic.twitter.com/zLMuNZCfwP
— TonightVMTV (@TonightVMTV) April 8, 2024
He said that during his ‘own time’ there were in the region of 23 homeless charities in Dublin “alone” employing “nearly 900” staff on “full time equivalents” servicing a number of homeless rough sleepers “who were a fraction of that” number.
“Be very careful when you ask a question that you’re ready for the answer.” said Skehan, adding that “for instance, in terms of saying, we wanted to know who spends what. We also need to ask how many people are doing the same thing. How many charities exist for exactly the same purpose?” he said.
Skehan continued questioning whether these charities are “all doing this as well as it could be done” and if they were “serving the community that they set themselves up to serve”.
He questioned the use of funding asking, “Are they spending the money that they get from the government and from donors, on secretaries and accountants and pension schemes and properties?”
Reacting to Skehan’s comments, Senator Sharon Keogan said, “Over 500 housing agencies in this country and we have 14,000 homeless. Go figure. A full audit on all of these would be a good start..”
My colleague Dr. Matt Treacy previously reported on the kind of money allocated to homeless charities and NGOs in government and local authority funding.
On this platform he wrote, According to the financial reports of five of the main homeless NGOs operating in the Dublin region, they had an income of €137 million in 2021. Of that figure, €86.2 million came directly from the taxpayer. The five: Dublin Simon, Focus, McVerry Trust, Novas and Threshold employed 1774 people.
So while the numbers of homeless has expanded so too have the numbers of those making a living from supposedly helping to solve the problem. In fact, the numbers employed and the amounts of money they have access to appear to be in inverse proportion to finding that solution. In 2018, Dublin Simon had a total income of €21.5 million – €11.5 million from the state, and employed 309 people. Now it brings in €25.6 million (€17.35 million from the state) and pays the wages of 413 people.
Those five NGOs alone now have a combined income that has increased by over €32 million in the last five or six years. Over 60% of that increase has consisted of money granted from various government departments and local authorities. A substantial part of that goes to pay the salaries of those newly employed.
Even if we just take the five organisations listed above, there is one person employed by them for every three households accounted homeless in Dublin. Their total income amounts to over €25,000 for each homeless household in the region. That would be sufficient to pay rent for more than a year for most houses and apartments.
Skehan added that if homeless charities and NGOs do have a duty of care to the homeless that the “duty of care is to make sure the money we do spend is spent as well as possible,”.
Perhaps there is sufficient evidence that there are questions to be answered in this regard.