and the Department of Housing for enabling us to deliver this scheme, and also to the public who helped increase the number of units delivered through donations received by the Refund Project.”
The housing has been developed using the Housing First model, where homeless people are given secure accommodation, with any health or addiction issues addressed after they have been housed. The tenants will have access to both visiting and on-site supports from trust staff on a 24-hour basis, while a community building will provide residents with a central location in which to socialise.“Part of our ethos is to try and provide accommodation for the most vulnerable and the most problematic homeless people, the ones with the most complex needs. They would be people who have never had their own home before,” Fr McVerry said.
Liam Coughlan, who will be moving into one of the houses shortly, said he had been moving from place to place and sometimes sleeping on the streets for many years. “I’ll be 41 in March. I’ve been roaming the Dublin streets for years and wondering where I was going to end up...it’s hard to tell for how long.”“Some of the places I’ve been, the doors would be hanging off, but here you have your own front door and your own back door, and it’s spacious, you can breath in and breath out.”