by Kathy Masterson
RESPOND! housing association, which already operates a number of social housing complexes in Limerick, is hoping to provide emergency accommodation for homeless families in the city over the coming months.
The organisation currently manages the Suaimhneas centre, which provides emergency accommodation for women and children, however it does not cater for adult males or boys aged over 12.
Respond! western regional manager Paul Hargaden this week told Limerick City and County Council that the organisation hopes to provide three to four self-contained apartments for families at Ballygrennan Close in Moyross.
Speaking at the Metropolitan area meeting on Monday he said: “Suaimhneas doesn’t take boys over 12, and it doesn’t cater to fathers, so it has happened that we have had to separate families. We are hoping to convert the vacant group home into three or four apartments to provide supervised accommodation in separate family units.”
Mr Hargaden told the Limerick Post that he expects to have a plan in place for the facility within six months.
“We have put together a working group to carry out an assessment of the current services available. We need to speak to the other homeless services in Limerick to see what their needs are and we will take those into account.
“We want to do this in cooperation with the homeless services. We would hope to have something up and running in the next six months. We’re in the very early stages of planning, but so far we have been getting very good feedback,” he explained.
During the meeting, City North councillor Maurice Quinlivan asked Mr Hargaden if there were plans to repair and relet six vacant units in Ballygrennan Close that are currently boarded up.
He added: “Everybody in Moyross is perplexed as to why these houses have not been fixed. Ballygrennan estate looks very well, apart from these six houses at the front. We need to get them let as soon as possible.”
Mr Hargaden revealed that repair work on the six houses has been put to tender in the last week and that “we hope they’ll be up and ready in the next couple of months”.
