Homeless people who are provided accommodation are
often ending up back on the streets due to poor supports and a sense of
isolation from the wider community, the director of a charity for
homeless people has warned.
Alice Leahy,
the co-founder of Trust, an inner-city support centre for homeless
people, said too often vulnerable people were seen only as problems to
be resolved through a “tick-box” culture.
She an
alarming absence of compassion and human contact across health and
social services was adding to isolation of homeless people.
“We meet increasing numbers of people who
were re-settled in totally unsuitable accommodation, and then find
themselves homeless again, an experience that often makes them feel even
greater failures and more isolated,” she said.
“It
is disturbing to see how undervalued human contact and genuine caring
for others has become in so many areas of life, not least in
healthcare,” she said.
Homeless policies nowadays
promote a “housing first” approach, on the basis that the longer a
person stays in emergency accommodation, the more likely they are to
remain on the street.
But Ms Leahy said the lack of alternative accommodation options meant that some vulnerable people were ending up in prison.
“Ironically
we have got rid of the County Homes, the orphanages and even the
psychiatric hospitals, leaving only the prison as the last refuge for
many of those who are vulnerable and cannot cope and whose difficulties
are only criminalised because there is no where else to send them .”
She was speaking at a conference on the need for compassion in healthcare services.
Ms
Leahy, who co-founded Trust almost 40 years ago, said in some respects
life for homeless people had become more difficult than it was before.
“Looking
at a report I did in 1976 makes depressing reading because it
illustrates how little has changed for people apart from closure of
small hospitals and changing landscape,” she said.
“From
what we see on a daily basis it would appear that the most difficult
people were ironically better cared for then. People now are living
longer lives, all now seen as a problem rather than a valuable asset.”
She
said instead of services which meet the need of individuals, too often
vulnerable people with complex needs were being asked to fit into
one-size-fits-all supports.
“The people we meet
are perceived by the wider society as being different and difficult; and
indeed many are. They suffer from the effects of isolation, neglect and
health problems, exacerbated by what are often described as chaotic
lifestyles.”
She said little will change until
those in positions of power are prepared to “sit with people in their
misery and poverty, feel their pain, smell the smell of human misery”
rather than accepting at face value the statistics presented in “neat
boxes with grandiose titles”.