HOMELESS CRISIS WORSENS

At 3.40 p.m. yesterday a young teenager sat in a lane in inner-city
Dublin "waiting for a friend".

Focus Ireland's day centre for young people had just closed for the
day. A long evening stretched in front of the almost 900 homeless
people in Dublin under the age of 18 who availed themselves of the
homeless agency's services last year. Just four years ago that figure
was 352.

Jean Rafter is the crisis liaison officer at the day centre, known to
its members as "The Extension". It consists of several warm, bright
rooms. In one, there are facilities for tea, coffee and snacks. In
another, there is a pool table and colourful sofas.

Sitting on one of the sofas, Ms Rafter talked about young teenagers
trying to hold their lives together. "The main problem is that there
are too few beds available", she said.

According to the Eastern Health Board, there are 45 emergency places,
but Ms Rafter maintains that this figure, on any given night, is more
like eight or nine. Most of the beds were occupied by young people who
are long-term residents.

"There is often a situation where you will have 20 people fighting
over a few beds", she said.

According to Margaret O'Gor man, of Focus Ireland, the numbers of
people using this out-of-hours service is under-reported. "Many,
especially the younger ones, simply do not know that this service
exists", she says.

Recent research by Focus Ireland indicates that the majority of young
homeless people come from very specific areas of the city. "Poverty,
social deprivation and lack of educational opportunities are the
underlying causes", Ms O'Gorman said.

The key was more beds and more specialised services. "Services that
can be accessed by people with chaotic lifestyles. You cannot tailor
the people to the services, the services need to cater to the people",
she said.

About 60 people a month access the day care centre. Of these, there is
a core group which Ms Rafter describes as "chronically homeless".
Among the under-18s, Ms Rafter estimates that between 60 and 70 per
cent have a "serious drug addiction", usually to heroin.

The youngest on heroin is 14. There is one case of a young teenager
who has a heroin problem so severe that he cannot access any of the
accommodation services and has to sleep out every night.

The city's rehabilitation and detoxification services, which Ms Rafter
says have shown a marked improvement in the past year, are also closed
to him. "To access those services you have to show some determination
and motivation, and it is very hard to do that when you are sleeping
rough."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry