Closure of Cedar House homeless shelter callous and uncaring

10 February 2010

by Cllr Joe Costello

The sudden and unilateral decision to close down Cedar House, Marlborough Street, Dublin 1, an emergency accommodation and homeless shelter in the North Inner City is callous and uncaring.

The Centre provides a night service for some 50 homeless people and a day service for some 40 more. Also the Centre provides sleeping bags for many who sleep out of doors.

There are two Homeless Shelters - Cedar House and The Granby, Granby Lane, Dublin 1, in the North Inner City.

Both are full. So there is no question of the clientele in Cedar House, many of whose lifestyle is chaotic, transferring to the Granby Centre.

There has been no debate or discussion about the closure.

The Government Strategy on Homelessness, "Pathway to Home" 2008-2013 is a work of fiction. It made a commitment to end long term homelessness by the end of 2010! That is a pipedream. The Social Housing programme has collapsed at present. The Local Authorities have no house building programme for those who cannot house themselves. They have no programme to bring vacant housing stock back into circulation. They have no refurbishment programme for extensions or alterations for growing families or for people with disabilities. There are 60,000 families awaiting Local Authority housing at present.

Housing for the homeless is at the bottom of the pile. There isn't a hope in hell that long term homelessness will end by the end of 2010!

Sudden unilateral decisions, as in the case of Cedar House, are certainly not the way to go. Undoubtedly, many of the residents will end up back sleeping on the streets with all that that entails in this atrocious wet and wintry weather.

Secondly, the loss of the day service which provides treatment from doctor and nursing staff will be very serious.

Finally there are some 45 staff employed by Cedar House at present. Their future employment is now in jeopardy. The workers in Cedar House are major stakeholders in the project but were not consulted about the decision to close.

Neither were their union representatives in SIPTU and Impact.

I am calling on the Government, the City Council and the Salvation Army to reverse the decision until alternative facilities are provided for the homeless people involved.