The Simon Communities of Ireland’s has published two research reports: ‘The Experiences of Simon Community Service Users During the Pandemic’ and ‘Sustaining the Accelerant?: The response of Simon Communities to Four Waves of the Covid-19 Pandemic’.
The Experiences of Simon Community Service Users During the Pandemic explores the perspectives of Simon Community service users, was carried out between March 2020 and August 2021 and represents the concluding phase of a larger study encompassing two recent prior reports, Systems Accelerant? The Responses of Simon Communities to ‘First Wave’ Covid-19 (Finnerty and Buckley, 2021 ) and Simon Community Service Users’ Experiences During the Pandemic (Finnerty, Cullinane and Buckley, 2021 ).
Sustaining the Accelerant? explores the responses of Simon homelessness services during the Covid-19 pandemic and looks at congregate accommodation, exits and move-ons, rough sleepers, outreach and drop-in services, health services, education and leisure, food services, online and telephone supports, staffing and interagency working.
The report on experiences of service users has found that users benefitted from greater personal space within emergency accommodation during Covid-19. This was due to emergency accommodation mitigating the risks of Covid-19 transmission. Other service users moved from emergency accommodation into supported accommodation. After an initial decrease in the number of rough sleepers during the first wave of Covid-19, the number of people sleeping rough began to increase again in the third wave. This changing demographic saw many young and middle-aged men presenting to the Simon Community. Every effort was made in accommodating rough sleepers in emergency accommodation, isolation and cocooning facilities, and where possible, more long-term accommodation.
Respondents tended to report good levels of ongoing sourcing and tenanting of, particularly, Housing First accommodation in line with national targets, although the availability of one-bed units was a significant blockage to greater provision. More broadly, availability of rental properties for HAP tenancies was increased in one large urban centre, in significant part owing to the release of formerly short-term let accommodation during the pandemic.
“The enhancing of Housing First, the supports to step up the focus on homelessness, the acceleration of policies on homelessness and the moratorium on evictions all had an impact on homelessness over the last year.
“We’ve seen that Covid has had a greater impact on the people who remained in homelessness. Isolation led to greater addiction problems and overdoses in our communities. But we also saw successful outcomes when housing was provided.
“We’re now entering into a storm of increasing rents and no supply. We have to solve the homelessness problem. 8,000 people in homelessness is just not good enough.
“Earlier this week we launched the Simon Bill to amend the Residential Tenancies Act and help prevent homelessness and we’re asking people to log on to simon.ie to support it,” Wayne Stanley, Head of Policy and Communications with the Simon Communities of Ireland, said.
Where decanting took place, respondents viewed it positively in terms of improvements in liveability of congregate accommodation, effectiveness of key working, and in some cases incidents within services. Challenges arose where there was a reduced level of available placements and where it was difficult to ask people to move out of congregate settings. Success in keeping virus out was broadly shared by respondents across the regions throughout the pandemic.
There were mixed but broadly positive reports around service user adaptability and tenancy sustainment and while respondents were clear that avoiding returning service users to their former emergency accommodation settings was a key priority, it was clear that longer-term housing solutions have yet to be sourced for many.
To address the loneliness and boredom faced by people who needed to isolate, laptops, tablets and phones were purchased for service users. The laptops, tablets and phones were crucial in facilitating service users in continuing to interact with drug and alcohol supports, counselling services and maintaining contact with family and friends. They also facilitated online learning and leisure activities.
Overall, excellent levels of interagency working in response to covid-19 were reported by Simon and statutory respondents across the whole range of services. Issues of housing supply and finance were commonly identified as potential barriers to exiting homelessness.
