Following our story yesterday on the struggle a homeless man was having in contacting Meath County Councils homeless officers we sent the following questions to the Council.
1; We made numerous calls to the homeless service today and nobody picked the phone up. Is the office currently staffed ?
2; We are aware of a situation where a councillor accompanied a homeless man into Buvinda House to try and have him assessed for housing needs and could not secure a face to face conversation with a housing officer.
How many staff are actually employed in the homelessness sector of the housing department ?
3; Given the likely increase in homelessness following the lifting of the eviction ban does MCC plan to increase staffing numbers in this area ?
4; If somebody finds themselves homeless over the Easter holiday period is there an emergency service staffed to help them and if not when would their call be replied to.?
We are only too well aware that the council, along with other bodies, ducks behind the ‘ we can’t comment on individual cases’ response, so as is clearly seen we didn’t ask about any individual case, although we referred to one.
This morning we received the following reply.
‘We acknowledge receipt of your email below. Unfortunately, the Council cannot comment on individual housing cases. Please find below link to our website which provides information to people who are at risk of homelessness, including information for tenants who have received a notice to quit.
https://www.meath.ie/council/council-services/housing/homeless-service.’
Remember we did NOT ask for comment on an individual case.
As usual it seems there are more questions than answers.
