A Public meeting will be held Thursday 24th October in St Catherine’s Sports Centre at 8:00PM to discuss with the Peter McVerry Trust the future of St Catherine’s Foyer under their management. This meeting is the end point of consultations between the Trust and the Fairness 4D8 Young People group which have been on going since September.
There had been major concerns in the community that the Foyer’s existing model of homeless service provision would be radically changed by the change in management of the McVerry trust. In the past the Foyer had solely focused on providing long term accommodation to young people who were addiction free and in crisis. As the service presently shares a building with sports centre used predominately by young people any substantial change in practices could have had a negative effect on the community. Spokesperson Ronnie Byrne develops the point “People were worried that if another emergency wet shelter were to come into the area the sports centre would end up closing, I mean how can you have two services so different sharing the same building, we were also concerned for the existing residents of the Foyer how cope in that environment”.
Byrne however believes that discussions with DCC and the trust have been productive: “We have been given guarantees (See PDF document attached) that the service won’t be radically changed. Key for us is that new residents will have to be under 26, not in active addiction and will be offered accommodation for up to 6 months. We would urge residents with concerns to attend the meeting on Thursday to ask the questions directly of the trust and to read the document”.
