Reflecting Thoughtfully On Irish Housing And Homelessness Programs

Buildings on the University of Limerick Campus
Hard to imagine studying for a university degree while homeless? This year it's estimated that at least a hundred University of Limerick students will be doing just that, as well as many elsewhere, so serious is Ireland's housing crisis. Read more about this here
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A recent report has been published about housing and homelessness policy in Ireland. The report was commissioned by six voluntary agencies that are on the front line in delivering services to people living in precarious situations, including homelessness.

The report is somewhat different from standard policy reviews:

“The goal was not to provide a comprehensive review of homelessness
strategy, . . . but to look at the current state of homelessness strategy and policy from the perspective of a critical friend.”

Normally, an international policy review engages senior leaders on policy and practice from different countries. There would be a formal terms of reference, an extensive literature review, data gathering, interviews, analysis, findings and recommendations. As the report linked below notes, this isn’t needed: there is a comprehensive review already.

Instead, the “work assembled a small international group of independent and university researchers with track records of homelessness policy evaluation across Europe and within the USA.”

There are four researchers. The six agencies involved are front line service providers, not senior government leaders. Representatives from each of the agencies formed an advisory committee for the research team. This less formal setup allowed the researchers to identify and investigate the issues that were of greatest interest to the agencies that commissioned the report.

The report centres on definitions of homelessness and strategic responses. The authors’ decision to centre the report this way emerged through examination of local data and interviews. The authors interviewed service providers, government officials and people with experience of homelessness to the extent possible during the global pandemic.

The report then branches out to look at definitions and responses in different jurisdictions.

There are brief descriptions of homelessness responses in countries that are part of the European Union as well as the United Kingdom and the United States. These make the report invaluable for anyone who is curious about, and unfamiliar with, the range of responses in different countries. The summaries are brief and highlight how individual programs are both similar and different.

These summaries just touch the surface of the project’s unique contribution to housing and homelessness programming. Two more posts are in the works: one about Housing First1 and a second about data.

For those who want/need to skip the details of this project, there is a summary that starts on page 13.

Read more at focusireland: From Rebuilding Ireland To Housing For All: International And Irish Lessons For Tackling Homelessness

Footnotes

  1. Housing First is an evidence-based approach that supports people who have been homeless for some time to settle in permanent housing.