Dublin Simon Community Launches Annual Impact Report 2022
Dublin Simon Community today launched its Annual Impact Report, revealing that 1,011 people are living in ‘forever’ homes provided by the charity and almost 5,500 people were supported in a range of ways throughout 2022.
The report showed an 18% increase in the number of people living in long-term accommodation, however, there was an overall reduction of 17% in the number of people supported compared to the previous year, largely due to the fact that people receiving support are spending longer in homeless services due to the shortge of affordable and suitable housing to enable them to exit services and live independently.
Dublin Simon’s housing-led strategy means that the charity had 784 accommodation units by the end of 2022, comprising 280 independent housing units, 179 long-terms supported housing units and the remainder in emergency accommodation, health and addiction treatment beds.
The impacts in 2022 were highlighted:
- 5,476 people and families supported across all services.
- 1,011 people were living in forever homes provided by Dublin Simon Community.
- 715 adults and children had homes in long-term independent housing.
- 192 people were living in medium and high support housing with access to key working and supports needed to rebuild their lives.
- 453 people stayed in Dublin Simon’s short-term emergency accommodation.
- 934 people received medical, residential treatment, detox, and recovery services across 2022.
- Dublin Simon’s Outreach had 6,371 interventions with people sleeping rough.
- 967 adults and children were supported by our settlement services in 2022.
- 3,335 hours of one-to-one counselling and crisis suicide intervention was provided by Dublin Simon’s Sure Steps Counselling service.
- Client Development delivered well-being, education and employability services to 279 people.
Dublin Simon Community CEO, Catherine Kenny, acknowledged the challenges of operating in a year where the country was emerging from a pandemic into the depths of a cost of living crisis.
This, she said, led to increasing challenges for people who were already struggling to maintain a roof over their heads.
“Against the odds we continued to end homelessness for people and families every single day in 2022 through our long-term and independent housing, resettlement and prevention services.”
Noting the 17% decrease in people supported over the previous year, Ms Kenny added: “While I am immensely proud of what our staff and volunteers have achieved in increasingly challenging circumstances, the limitations placed on the scope of our success cannot go unacknowledged.
“As the pool of available rental properties continued to shrink throughout 2022 many of our clients joined the long queues to view potential rental properties alongside hundreds of others with whom they could not financially compete.
“Too many people who are ready and waiting to exit homelessness are being stranded in homeless services because there are simply no properties available to allow them to live their lives independently and with dignity.”
She added: “Many of these people have overcome extraordinary challenges to get to that point, including trauma, addiction, broken homes and financial challenges. It is truly heart-breaking that they are unable to clear this final hurdle to rebuilding their lives.”
Catherine Kenny said the outcome of this situation is taking an immense toll on the people whose lives are on-hold. “For these people a happy ending remains out of reach. The knock-on effect of this situation is taking an enormous toll on the physical and mental health of the growing number of people who are entering homelessness.”
An online version of the report is available here
