The four main homelessness charities will come together today to call on the Government to end homelessness by 2010.
Focus Ireland, the Simon Communities, the Society of St Vincent de Paul and Threshold will call for the provision of 10,000 social and affordable housing units every year to 2010 and an injection of €2 billion into the National Development Plan.
Declan Jones, director of Focus Ireland, said yesterday the aims of the Make Room campaign were not unduly ambitious. "This is the Government's own commitment in its homelessness strategy and these are recommendations from the Government's own National Economic and Social Council. It's not rocket science."
Meanwhile, the Minister for Labour Affairs, Tony Killeen, has said homeless people were a group that has not always been readily reached out to by Government.
Speaking at the publication of the review of a project to encouraging businesses to offer job opportunities to homeless people, he said the homeless were a disparate group of individuals with much to contribute.
The review of the four-year-old Ready For Work project shows that of the 178 referrals it has had since 2002, 118 (66 per cent) began training and 112 (95 per cent) completed training. Most began and completed a work placement and went on to either employment or further education. An initiative of the Business In The Community (BITC) organisation, the Ready For Work programme is supported by Anglo Irish Bank, Marks & Spencer, the Jurys Doyle Hotel Group and Brown Thomas.
Mr Killeen said the Government was acutely aware of "how intimidating the problem of long-term unemployment can be".
"It really is hugely important in terms of giving a person a place in society.
"Most of us think of a homeless person as the old man trying to find a doorway to sleep in at 10 at night." He said the individual profiles were more diverse, and homelessness could be the result of a marriage or relationship breakdown or the loss of a job.
"They are a disparate group," he said, adding that the stereotypical image sometimes made it difficult for people to reach out and give a helping hand.
He said this was one of the great successes of the project and he called on more businesses to get involved. There was a limit to how much Government could do in solving any issue.
"It would be a very weak society if all people felt the only solution was a Government solution," he said.
The Ready For Work project can be reached on 01-8747232, or e-mail: rcarvill@bitc.ie
LIZ (33) (left) has been homeless and essentially, alone, since she was five. Originally from Kilbarrack in Dublin, her mother, she says, "took a nervous breakdown" and she was taken into institutional care.
"When I was 18, I suppose you could say I was kicked out, onto the streets. I slept in doorways, churches, cardboard boxes even." Asked how she used to get money, she said she'd "tap (beg) in the streets.
"I'd get very depressed, though you just kind of accept it all too. I didn't think there was any kind of a life for me." She has not seen her mother since she was five.
In the past two years, she was referred to a sheltered housing scheme run by the Society for St Vincent de Paul and has been on the Business In The Community's Return To Work (RTW) programme for the past 18 months.
"It's very strange, having people respect me, if you know what I mean. When I was on the streets I just kept my head down. No one hardly even looked at me. It was horrible, looking back though at the time it's just what was happening."
Liz was placed to work with horses at the Cherry Orchard Equine Centre, but left in the summer to study and take her Leaving Certificate.
"This programme has opened doors to me," she says. "And it's opened me to things. I have a little baby girl and little boy who is two. What I want is to get a place to live and to work with horses, though I'm open to anything really."
JOHN (30), originally from Armagh and now living in a hostel in Swords, Co Dublin has been on the RTW programme for just two weeks. He had been fostered in Armagh, but left for Dublin "because the fostering situation wasn't very happy". He has lived in hostels and B&Bs for over 10 years. His key worker in Focus Ireland referred him to the programme.
"I am just getting help with doing CVs and that at the moment. But I'd like to work in computers."
